Let us say the first job is your dream job, something which you look forward doing every day. You have an adequate home and car, but nothing special. This job allows you to pay your bills, feed your family, etc... However, it does not let you purchase any other luxuries,
Now, let us say the second job is something you don't like to do at all. You detest it with all your being. However, the salary is so great you can pay the bills, feed the family, etc... as well as buy as luxurious of things you like.
What job would you choose?
Love my life, or hate it? I chose the first.
Face it. You'll spend half your waking hours at work, the other half commuting / shopping / cooking / cleaning / eating and doing all the other mundane things needed to survive before you can set aside time to enjoy the niceties your higher salary allows.
What I don't get is the number of people ignoring this bit and going straight for the size of the paycheck. It's not as if the question was saying 'enjoy your poverty, or dislike your millions'. I read it more as 'Love your adequate lifestyle, or hate a higher paid one' - the emphasis being the strength of feeling towards your work rather than the level of wealth.
"If you love your job, you never work a day in your life."
...and if you hate your job, you'll come home all angry / upset / stressed and be unable to enjoy your time off.
We're not going to be talking stacking shelves at your local supermarket if it's a huge salary either. Huge salary job = high stress/presure job. Until you've experienced a job like that you can't really say that the money makes up for being somewhere that you detest for 40+ hours a week, month in month out. I know a handful of people who earn £100k+. Most of them dream of having stress-free jobs that they enjoy, even if the pay isn't great. Unfortunately for them they now have big houses to maintain and families who expect to be kept in a style they've become acustomed to, so they are stuck where they are.
This was something I realised whilst still at Uni. There I was working towards a city job, and the last thing I wanted to do with the rest of my life was to work the nine to five, monday to friday, in a stuffy suit, making stressful descisions, being stuck in traffic for hours every week, and all so that I could keep up with the Jones' next door. Better to have a relaxed life without those status symbols and the added stress of maintaining / protecting them.
[ Real life story #1 ]
In the next town along the road from me, there is a street sweeper working for the council - salary not much above basic minimum. Like myself and TheCrackers aquantances he realised that he didn't want the stress of a city job, and quit before getting stuck there. He's never been happier.
Having nice things doesn't make you happy, there are always nicer things you can't afford. The nice things you already have just become normal things, they loose their appeal.
The nicer your possesions, the more you strive for better until you reach the point of owning a Veyron and Maybach. When they becomes normal, what have you got left to dream of / strive for?
[ Real life story #2 ]
Another local man and ex-employer of my brother had been born into a wealthy family. At 19 he was running his own business, and driving a Lotus Elise. At 22 he got rid of his E-Class Mercedes. It was
the worst car he had every owned. Having been exposed to high class cars all his life, it just could not live up to his expectations. Eventually he was forced to leave town and relocated his business due to having made so many enemies locally with his questionable business ethics, and excessively lavish lifestyle in a typically poorer part of the country.
there isnt one day that goes by where i think to myself "what sort of job pays a ton of money? i want one of these things"
Now i need to find a job like that because i just went to a concours d'elegance. Now i NEED a ferrari
....or some rediculous 1600hp supra
