The job you want

If the salary was the same, what job would you be doing right now and why?

I’ve always said that I’d rather have a lower paying job that I enjoy than a higher paying job for which I struggle to get out of bed.

The salary isn’t important. If you don’t like the job, or the people you’re working with, you’ll struggle to get up every morning and eventually the salary will not seem as important and you’ll lose it, anyway.

The reality is that most jobs pay a living wage by law. The real problem isn’t the salary; it’s what we do with the salary. When we overspend, we go looking for a high paying job that we don’t like. Far better to live within the means provided by a lower paying job that we enjoy.

One of the things I’ve learned since I’ve retired is that we waste stress on work. Once we leave, someone else takes over. And they could have taken over long ago if we had left sooner. We are not as irreplaceable as we’d like to think.

So, the salary isn’t the important thing. It’s more about enjoying the life you can afford than striving for the one you can’t.