But what if the job with the most money makes you depressed and unhealthy and you end up constantly asking yourself why you didn't follow what you really wanted to do instead of following the cash?
More money is usually nice, granted, but if it becomes a necessity to have that money only so you can afford a bunch of inconsequential 'things' and activities in order to distract yourself from the realisation you're trading the majority of your waking time on earth for a job you don't actually like doing then you have to question the source of the motivation.
If I get the chance to contemplate my life on my deathbed, I know for damn sure I'm not going to regretfully think "I wish I spent more of my life working a job I hate so I could've had a newer car".
I agree but that ,to me, is a cliché ending I wish on no one. I am going to call it the "family model". This doesn't mean it is blood relation all the time but most often is. The family model to me included parents, adult family with influence, teachers, coaches, college advisers, people in the working world, athletes, dancers, and the list just keeps going specific to the young persons sphere of influence. We all know about, and some still remember those few to several years in your teens when you were or should have been trying to figure out what you want to do in the near future.
For me this included very few people from my family but there are a number of cornerstone characters in my life that guided and molded my decisions. I
I can say with certainty I knew I wanted to be a EE from about 15 years old. However, I ignored common sense and wisdoms for several years, just working a job and doing most of the stuff 'wild' teenagers do.
We grew up pretty rural. Moving away from the family home at 18 was an unwritten rule that we all understood well. So for a few years I just got by. I got a full ride to college but had to work to have anything else. We also had/have a family farm that demanded time. I still remember struggling with the time constraints; figuring out what I 'wanted' to do and what I needed to do and how they reconciled.
Sports always came natural to me. It was never an issue of whether I would play football and continue going to school. Then, late in my 3rd year my father discovered he had cancer. My oldest brother had already moved quite a distance away and my other two siblings were doing their own thing. So it was pretty easy to stop college/football and pick up the slack at my fathers construction company and the farm. In hindsight, it really solidified some notions I was already having.
After my father passed, my new wife and I eventually bought the farm. About 10 years later I went back to college and finished with two Masters degrees.
There are a ton of benchmark events in the middle of it all. I never remember working a fixed hour job and then thinking I needed to find something else to do. My life has been full to overflowing the whole time. We have had up to 4 business going at the same time. One of which is my original Dojang. I never proactively think 'I am not going to engage in that activity unless it makes me money'. I know a few people like that and I do think they are unhappy most of the time.
My apologies; I know I am rambling but it is a needed distraction.
A very, very close friend of our family, Thomas Warren "Bubba" Gant had a massive stroke yesterday morning. Think of the most fit 31 year old and he will trump them, and he is 51. The doctor said a major artery in his brain twisted, probably like that since birth. The family is taking him off the vent this afternoon.
Please lift Bubba and his family up. I believe in the power of prayer.
