The Weekend Engagement | Would you rather

The Weekend Engagement | Would you rather

Would you rather work in a job you totally hate but pays you well, or work in a job you love and find inspiring, but the pay was low, and you had to strictly budget your financial matters. Explain your answers.

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In the middle of the night

After many weeks of watching each time, and then thinking: I have to participate in this! It finally happened again today. I've taken the time to write a blog in the middle of the night while my partner and the dogs are sleeping. Why this time, and then apparently not again in other weeks? It is not easy to give a straight answer to that. But that's just something that will become clear later in my blog.

Is the answer clear?

The question is clear! But is the answer clear? Believe me, my first thought was that the answer is not difficult at all. Of course, in such a case, you choose a job that you can enjoy going to every day. A job that you really enjoy doing so that not even a day should be considered real work. That you have to budget your finances is no drama. After all, you enjoy your job every day and that is important because your work is something you are confronted with every day. It would be ideal to have a job that is AND your dream job AND that pays incredibly well, but that's not the question. So my first thought was: I would pick the inspiring job I love and a low salary.

That was NOT my answer!

Now you think, well that's a short blog, you've already given your answer. But that's not quite true. As I said, that was my first thought. And before I even got to the point of typing this blog, at least 10 other thoughts ran through my head regarding this topic, this question. And that has everything to do with my partner, who has a job that he hates! Even worse, it pays poorly too! Yet he continues to hold this job, for the simple reason that at the moment there is no other choice.

Everyone deserves to live!

There is also such a thing as your fixed costs. We can now afford them by denying ourselves various things. We can't just buy everything we want, we can't go out to dinner every week, and a lot more… I'm not even going to list everything we can't do. Suffice it to say that we can barely survive on the income that is now credited to the bank account each month without doing crazy things (read fun things here). It's actually too little to really live on, and just too much to die.

The job he hates

He works full-time in this job, which means that he comes home on Friday… and usually spends every Friday night sleeping on the couch. Just completely broken by the hard work week that he has had again. And then he can finally relax and take a break because there is a weekend in between in which he can recharge with what he loves to do. Wood turning and woodworking!

Not so black and white

As I sat looking at him for a moment, just before he woke up, I realized that it is not so black and white. Yes, you normally have to go to your job every day. Yes, it's very nice if you have a job that you love, so that it doesn't feel like a heavy obligation that you have to do every day. And that the salary is a bit less, well … that's the way it is! So you would think, right?

Financial stress is horrible!

But what if, just like now, you have to deal with sky-high inflation around the world. You can hardly pay for your groceries anymore, and the few enjoyable things you could do are no longer possible. In fact, because your job only paid you just enough that you could barely manage on a tight budget… you are now in danger of getting into debt. And that while you work in that job that you really love. Is it worth it? You may not be stressed by your work, but you are dealing with financial worries 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And that is not so easy to solve.

At such a moment, you would be happy with a job that you may hate, but where you close the door behind you after work. You can clear your mind, release the stress your job is giving you. Put it off and just start living … because on your bank account is enough to do that!

Early retirement?

Another thought is that a job you hate, but pays you well, can mean that can retire early. If you are careful with the money your job is paying you, you can build up nice savings! And with a good savings account, you are maybe able to retire earlier. Retiring early sets you free to enjoy all the pleasant thing's life has to offer, besides work. It gets terrible when you have AND that job you hate, AND that job pays you poorly. And that is the case here for my partner, without the choice of leaving the job because we need that job to survive financially.

Money does not make you happy is always said, but lack of money certainly does not make you happy.

So now to answer the initial question:

Would you rather

Would you rather work in a job you totally hate but pays you well or work in a job you love and find inspiring, but the pay was low, and you had to strictly budget your financial matters.

For me, it would really depend on how well the job that I would really hate would pay, or how poorly the job that I would love would pay.

If the latter paid so badly that I really had to 'survive' it would stop there for me. Finally, it is also important to build a nest egg and perhaps even be able to retire earlier. Because no matter how much you love your work, there is so much more to life than just work. If that would not be possible with the job I love, I would decline. And go to the job I would hate, but be able to free myself from financial worries. Because at this point in my life, I really learned how influential that is for your wellbeing.

You carry financial stress with you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! But you can learn to let go of the stress of a job after work.



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14 comments
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Bang, I did it again... I just rehived your post!
Week 111 of my contest just started...you can now check the winners of the previous week!
!BEER
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Framing work as only part of your life is a good way of coping with the challenge of doing a job you dislike. I have done some horrible jobs, but they've tended not to last long. That helps, too 🙂.

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I saw that challenge and ran that option through my mind, too. In a different way, but I came to a similar conclusion. Maybe that means I should think about it some more...
!gif !LOLZ !meme
!CTP

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They say you should do what you are passionate about and then you would never work a day in your life. However, I do think its abit about balance. Sometimes what you think you are passionate about, if you do for 24hrs a day 7 days a week could become also boring and not fun.

However I think it is generally a good guiding principle. If you have to do a job you dont like, perhaps a compromise is to do it part time instead of full time and then it readjusts the priorities and boundaries and makes it more bearable.

Great thoughtful post!
Have a great weekend.

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I would rater clown around with crypto until I become rich :P
In my mind working is only enjoyable when you are already financially independent.

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This is a great response and I agree in a big part of it :)
Maybe I should participate too, I ll see :)

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