“Money is 95% of the Reason Anyone Pursues a Career”

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

I was just reading this AMA with a 24 year-old depressed millionaire and thought this stray comment might be good food for thought. Here is a link to the AMA for anyone curious: www.reddit.com/r/AMA/s/Bja36ZRcA4

I strongly disagree with the statement, but maybe others will feel differently. When I was growing up my ambition had nothing to do with money (I mean good lord I originally wanted to be a reporter). I’ll say as I’ve gotten older money has definitely grown in importance. But due to some life experiences I’m very jaded in some ways. If I never stopped pursuing my original path and had less reason to be cynical I might have a very different relationship with money.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

He's right, because capitalism. You need money to live. Anything else has to be secondary, that's just how it works

[pinja]

In isolation: No, I don't believe he's right. One rather persues a job for money than a career. A career is a complex path to take. It demands certain talents and interests to be fruitful in most cases. Years of learning and (net)working and opportunity. It is hard to correlate it to money. I could have tried countless different careers bringing in the same amount of money. Some less, some more. But I chose a career aligning with my specialties and my sense of security. Being almost unfirable hasn't directly to do with money, but it is an economical benefit worth persuing my career anyway.

[Totorob101]

Money is the main motivation for people and it would be foolish to argue against that as we need money to live and to enjoy life. On a personal level for me, i dont care much about money and enjoy my job so much (working with animals) even with the low wage but that doesnt make me no better or worse then others who work for the sole purpose of making money. Money is important and we all need it and getting the best jobs means working hard and those who work hard deserve financial rewards from it.

[Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!!]

A job is a means to an end, nothing more, nothing less. Find a job that works for you and allows you to live a good life outside of it. Don't live for your work because whoever you're working for doesn't give a shit about you unless you work for yourself.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

May 8, 2024 2:22:43 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

He's right, because capitalism. You need money to live. Anything else has to be secondary, that's just how it works

I guess where I disagree with some other folks on here is if I was super rich I wouldn’t just enjoy retirement and never work again. Money is necessary in today’s world (probably as or more necessary than it was a thousand years ago and will be in another thousand years), but as almost the sole motivator of why one pursues a career?

Given that wanting to innovate, be the best, or just personal enjoyment are three of a multitude of reasons why someone would pick a career I stand by my original stance. I’d imagine those three (along with many others) have to make up more the 5% of a lot of people’s motivation for their career.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

May 8, 2024 7:39:29 GMT -5 KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! said:

May 8, 2024 2:22:43 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

He's right, because capitalism. You need money to live. Anything else has to be secondary, that's just how it works

I guess where I disagree with some other folks on here is if I was super rich I wouldn’t just enjoy retirement and never work again. Money is necessary in today’s world (probably as or more necessary than it was a thousand years ago and will be in another thousand years), but as almost the sole motivator of why one pursues a career?

Given that wanting to innovate, be the best, or just personal enjoyment are three of a multitude of reasons why someone would pick a career I stand by my original stance. I’d imagine those three (along with many others) have to make up more the 5% of a lot of people’s motivation for their career.

I wouldn't either, I 100% would be doing shit for free since I didn't need to get paid.

[Ultimo Gallos]

Growing up I wanted to be an astronaut or work for Marvel as a writer/artist.

Then Challenger happened and I can't draw.

Ended up in the field of work I was in for a long ass time by odd chance. Took the test to get into the military. Got a high score. Told the recruiter I wanted something I could use once I had finished my 4 years in the service.

Got asked,since on my form it listed the extremely rural area I lived in,if my father hunted and if he did did I help him gut and clean the kills.

Yep. So got told about mortuary arts. And dude was right,good pay,you never run out of clients. And the ecomomy really doesn't effect this business.

I didn't fully want to work at the morgue cause of the money. But the money was a decent sized factor in it.

Now all my work is for my enjoyment firrst then money is secondary.

Like this Saturday going to vend and film at a show in Ocean Springs.

Right off the bat I am out 25 bucks for gas,snacks and food. Already presold 3 sets of "RARE" regional wrestling on TV footage. That totals up to 26 profit.

Which means before I even set up my table and the crowd comes in I am a buck ahead. Now might do great walk out with 100 bucks profit. Might not.

[Ultimo Gallos]

May 8, 2024 7:42:56 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

May 8, 2024 7:39:29 GMT -5 KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! said:

I guess where I disagree with some other folks on here is if I was super rich I wouldn’t just enjoy retirement and never work again. Money is necessary in today’s world (probably as or more necessary than it was a thousand years ago and will be in another thousand years), but as almost the sole motivator of why one pursues a career?

Given that wanting to innovate, be the best, or just personal enjoyment are three of a multitude of reasons why someone would pick a career I stand by my original stance. I’d imagine those three (along with many others) have to make up more the 5% of a lot of people’s motivation for their career.

I wouldn't either, I 100% would be doing shit for free since I didn't need to get paid.

Lets say I hit 400 million in the lotto this week. Yea I would still do my sidejobs.

I enjoy getting out and seeing shows. I enjoy going out and digging thru junkstores for stuff to resell.

But I wouldn't be hitting them as hard as I do now.

Also thinking I would use 2 million to book a show. With Hardcore Holly vs Sho Funaki vs Steve Blackman as the main event.

And book it in Sontag Mississippi,knowing 1 person here might even know Sontag and get that but still enjoy the laugh sir.

[schma]

While I know that there are people who pursue careers because of a passion of one sort or another, I do think that for many people the statement is true. I'm 40, grew up in a family where money was tight enough that sometimes my parents had to decide which bill to pay because there was no way they could afford to pay them all. More than once my parents had to go to the food bank despite both being hard working. Now, it could have been much worse, we always had a roof over our head and we may not have had a lot but we had enough to get by and I even got the occasional toy or video game. However, that experience with scarcity affected my outlook in ways I didn't understand until my 30s.

Then I finished university. At that point I had to go out into the real world. I owed tens of thousands of dollars in student debt (I do realize and appreciate that compared to those of you in the u.s. that's not too bad but it had a huge impact on my decisions). Just as I was running out of money I took a job at a factory, I told myself it was just for now so I could pay my bills. Then the 2008 recession started just a couple of months later. Fortunately, the factory I work made cheap products and a recession was good for business. A decade later there was another recession followed by covid. I'm still at this factory, I worked steadily through covid because it was considered essential. In fact, Covid was one of the busiest and most stressful times for me professionally as I had just become a supervisor in September 2019. I will tell you this, supervising during a pandemic? I would not wish that on anyone.

All of this is a lot of preamble to say, I never had any interest in this. I come from a blue collar family and I respect the heck out of blue collar workers. However, I never had any interest in a blue collar job. I took this job purely for money and turned it into a career because it ended up being incredibly stable. However, I've worked off shifts for most of my adult life and it took me a long time to realize how much I was falling out of touch with friends because of it. Now as a night shift supervisor working over 50 hours a week, often over 60, I barely see friends unless I specifically use vacation time to do so. If someone handed me a million dollars, I can guarantee I would not be doing this job. I would definitely be doing some kind of work even if I was really rich, partly to get myself out of the house and stay sane. However, many of the decision I've made as an adult have been purely based on financial security. I'm not saying that I chose the right path, I often thing I didn't. However, I know I'm not the only one who chose stability/money over passion.

[Mecca]

That is literally what you are taught to do in capitalism. To sell your skills and value to the highest bidder etc...

People who pick to follow their passions, especially one's that don't pay very well, get shit on at every turn "yea well you'd be doing better if you'd picked a practical career"

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

May 8, 2024 8:42:35 GMT -5 Ultimo Gallos said:

May 8, 2024 7:42:56 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

I wouldn't either, I 100% would be doing shit for free since I didn't need to get paid.

Lets say I hit 400 million in the lotto this week. Yea I would still do my sidejobs.

I enjoy getting out and seeing shows. I enjoy going out and digging thru junkstores for stuff to resell.

But I wouldn't be hitting them as hard as I do now.

Also thinking I would use 2 million to book a show. With Hardcore Holly vs Sho Funaki vs Steve Blackman as the main event.

And book it in Sontag Mississippi,knowing 1 person here might even know Sontag and get that but still enjoy the laugh sir.

Off topic, but that’s some main event! Curious why you picked those guys and made it a three way?

Also, since it’s a 2 million dollar show it would definitely get some headlines. Waking up one day and seeing on the newz sites there’s a huge super indie show in Mississippi headlined by Holly, Funaki, and Blackman in 2024 would be trippy as hell. And then I’d know exactly what happened

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

May 8, 2024 9:50:24 GMT -5 schma said:

While I know that there are people who pursue careers because of a passion of one sort or another, I do think that for many people the statement is true. I'm 40, grew up in a family where money was tight enough that sometimes my parents had to decide which bill to pay because there was no way they could afford to pay them all. More than once my parents had to go to the food bank despite both being hard working. Now, it could have been much worse, we always had a roof over our head and we may not have had a lot but we had enough to get by and I even got the occasional toy or video game. However, that experience with scarcity affected my outlook in ways I didn't understand until my 30s.

Then I finished university. At that point I had to go out into the real world. I owed tens of thousands of dollars in student debt (I do realize and appreciate that compared to those of you in the u.s. that's not too bad but it had a huge impact on my decisions). Just as I was running out of money I took a job at a factory, I told myself it was just for now so I could pay my bills. Then the 2008 recession started just a couple of months later. Fortunately, the factory I work made cheap products and a recession was good for business. A decade later there was another recession followed by covid. I'm still at this factory, I worked steadily through covid because it was considered essential. In fact, Covid was one of the busiest and most stressful times for me professionally as I had just become a supervisor in September 2019. I will tell you this, supervising during a pandemic? I would not wish that on anyone.

All of this is a lot of preamble to say, I never had any interest in this. I come from a blue collar family and I respect the heck out of blue collar workers. However, I never had any interest in a blue collar job. I took this job purely for money and turned it into a career because it ended up being incredibly stable. However, I've worked off shifts for most of my adult life and it took me a long time to realize how much I was falling out of touch with friends because of it. Now as a night shift supervisor working over 50 hours a week, often over 60, I barely see friends unless I specifically use vacation time to do so. If someone handed me a million dollars, I can guarantee I would not be doing this job. I would definitely be doing some kind of work even if I was really rich, partly to get myself out of the house and stay sane. However, many of the decision I've made as an adult have been purely based on financial security. I'm not saying that I chose the right path, I often thing I didn't. However, I know I'm not the only one who chose stability/money over passion.

Props to getting through Covid despite it being even busier. I can relate as I work in healthcare. So while I’d see social media posts about how people didn’t know how to use up all the hours of the day or loved/hated working from home, I was working 100+ hour weeks with Covid positive people.

I definitely relate to your third paragraph a lot too. If I won the lottery I’d definitely quit my healthcare job and pour all my energy into my small business.

Heck, I don’t even play the lottery and I’ve done a smaller version of this.

In late December I got injured at my healthcare job and used it as time to reevaluate things. Since then I’ve worked some weeks around 80 hours, just because I agreed to before my injury and wanted to honor my commitments. Otherwise I’ve worked 40 hours at my healthcare job aside from picking up the odd shift when someone needs a last minute favor.

But I still work a ton! I just focus all my time into my small business. I’m currently on track for that to be my primary income for this year. Of course the caveat is I’ll probably make a lot less money this year. But that’s a short term loss. Working 100+ hours a week for someone else, I definitely feel like I hit a ceiling on my income potential there. To make more than I was longterm I have to maximize my efficiency and that ceiling is much, much higher (maybe no ceiling at all). So longterm I could make more money doing something I enjoy more. And if things go south fortunately I’ve accumulated a healthy financial cushion and always have that option of going back to working those ridiculous hours.

[J. Hova]

People who pursue their passions can do that all they want and if they can get paid well, bully for them.

I'm lucky. I was hooked on computers from the time I was a kid, and parlayed that into a well paying career that I've been doing for nearly two decades now. I grew up in the bottom half of the middle class but I knew there were definite times where my parents were stretched to their absolute limit. I decided that I wasn't ever going to be in that position when I grew up.

That said, and this is top of mind considering that our annual review process is happening in the next few weeks at work, I don't do charity work in my profession. My obligation is to make as much money as possible in my prime earning years while my company's obligation is to get me to work for as cheaply as possible while still being able to retain my services.

All of that said, there are multiple reasons I didn't go into teaching or social work, but a big one was money and I don't apologize for that.

[Kalmia]

I work so I can afford to live, but I haven't chosen my current career path because it will pay me the most.

If I somehow came into a large amount of money I'd quit my current job but I wouldn't stop working completely. I'd probably start up a little business related to one of my passions and try to enjoy it without the stress of it needing to pay the bills.

[john84]

I can only speak for myself but when I work it's for my kids futures so I can have a little something in the kitty for when they're older.

[KingPooper]

I run a small rural library and do ghost tours in a hearse in Nashville. I didn’t take either of these jobs for the money.

I know I could make more elsewhere but you’re at these places a 1/3 of your life might as well do something you enjoy.

[Scoops]

I wanted to do plenty of creative jobs, the most probable being a line cook, but then I got a job at Portillos, worked 60-70 hour weeks and realized why every chef on reality TV immediately ran to booze and cigarettes the second they were off the line. Passions like art are great but unless you're incredibly lucky or have rose to the top of your field through years of work, you're probably going to be financially unstable or go through long hours and agonizing labor. Now I'm going to school for HVAC so I can move out of my parents house and hopefully build a future with my girl.

[Ultimo Gallos]

May 8, 2024 9:54:45 GMT -5 KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! said:

May 8, 2024 8:42:35 GMT -5 Ultimo Gallos said:

Lets say I hit 400 million in the lotto this week. Yea I would still do my sidejobs.

I enjoy getting out and seeing shows. I enjoy going out and digging thru junkstores for stuff to resell.

But I wouldn't be hitting them as hard as I do now.

Also thinking I would use 2 million to book a show. With Hardcore Holly vs Sho Funaki vs Steve Blackman as the main event.

And book it in Sontag Mississippi,knowing 1 person here might even know Sontag and get that but still enjoy the laugh sir.

Off topic, but that’s some main event! Curious why you picked those guys and made it a three way?

Also, since it’s a 2 million dollar show it would definitely get some headlines. Waking up one day and seeing on the newz sites there’s a huge super indie show in Mississippi headlined by Holly, Funaki, and Blackman in 2024 would be trippy as hell. And then I’d know exactly what happened

Got asked why months back why I wanted that main event,long car ride the topic of 2 million to book a show.

Huge Hardcore Holly fan. Huge Sho Funaki fan and know a pile of people that know him well. Blackman is just to get my GF to come to the show. She has to be one of the biggest Steve Blackman fans ever.

[kidkamikaze10]

I feel when you get enough money that you're comfortable, this mentality changes.

That's what happened to me. I used to be all about the money. Then I got enough out of a job I didn't like, and realized I can't live like that.