$$ucce$$ and happine$$

[GGT]

Should we do things just to make money, or should we use our talents and expect the money will follow? What happens when we have to choose making money over a talent?

This can apply to the individual as well as the group, the company as well as the corporation, the worker as well as the executives, the shareholder as well as the consumer, you get the point.

It's both a hippie philosophical question and a capitalist pragmatic question. Ultimately, I suppose, it's asking how you define the value of your life and what success and/or happiness means.

No poll, aren't ya glad?

[Aimless]

different people try to find different paths to happiness. some can't think of doing anything else but that which they love the most, even if there's little money in it (although if you love something and are damned good at it I guess you can often make an acceptable living). others are happy if they have a life and a job that leaves them room for pursuing more fulfilling but less profitable interests. some just take pride and pleasure in doing a good job, whatever the job may be.

i don't know why you paint such a black-and-white picture with binary and mutually exclusive choices. or why you speak of making money but not of making a living.


for my part, i want my life to have plenty of room for family and recreation. i require my job to be fulfilling and under my control to a significant extent. i want lots of money, but i want to get it by doing good things that i enjoy doing (and there's nothing to say that it HAS to come in the form of a doctor's regular salary).



i think we need to nurture and protect those things that make us happy, and i think it can often be hard to do that unless we're in a position of strength. eg. through physical emotional and financial security. chocolate makes me happy but i would not choose a miserable thankless uncertain life of nothing but chocolate because there would inevitably come a time when i would be fucked and chocolate would not be able to lift my spirits because i would have killed the magic of chocolate.

[GGT]

Chocolate!

The only rhyme or reason behind this thread was reading some posts last night, putting them all together, and wondering how others sort this out. (It's most definitely NOT a black-or-white picture.)

It's an old euphemism, but no one says from their death bed that they wished they'd spent more time at the office, or made more money.

[Catgrrl]

My philosophy had been to make enough money to pay the bills, and have some leftover for fun too. It's important to me that I "feel" like I'm paying my way (I know, I'm a stay at home now, but I worked and saved up to get here). THe grasshopper and the ant story always made me think, I'd never want to be the grasshopper out in the cold, wishing I had made sure that I had enough to eat and warmth.

If you can find a way to make your talents pay your bills, I think that's wonderful. But you must always have a backup plan so that you aren't left broke and homeless because no one bought your book, or your painting.

To me, happiness is friends and family, enough food to eat and a warm place to live. However big or small you want that to be, that's up to the individual. I'm a simple sort of gal so it doesn't take much to please me. I'm not much of a go-getter in that respect. Don't need the biggest house, newest console, fanciest car, brand name shoes. As long as I'm fed, pretty much everything else will fall into place for me.

So I guess to answer your first question: a little bit of both. I think if you have a real talent for something (not just art, but even math or science too) then you should strive to use that talent in a profession that suits you. So you can make money to live and be happy. "Starving artists" often work other jobs to pay their bills until they find their niche. And there's nothing wrong with that. If anything, I think it makes a person well-rounded if they've tried out different jobs so they can get a better understand of others. (My biggest beef being retail/food service, customers are sooooo rude to these people. If you've ever worked one of these jobs, you tend to be less of an asshole to cashiers and waiters because you understand their position.)

Bah, I'm rambling again.