Meaningful Work vs High Paying Work

Anything to do with the traditional world of get a degree, get a job as well as its alternatives
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James_0011
Posts: 392
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2016 12:00 am

Meaningful Work vs High Paying Work

Post by James_0011 »

One of the things that I would like to do after I reach FI is to find work or volunteer service that is in some way meaningful. I feel a strong urge to improve society in some way and struggle with how to approach this problem. One of the major inspirations for this desire of mine is the idea of "effective altruism" and the website "80,000" hours - basically the idea is for a human to be happy in the long run they need to work for a purpose higher then themselves. Jacob has solved this through the creation of his book and website.

I don't think this can be done at the expensive of oneself, as giving should come from a place of abundance in my view.

So, the issue is to take high paying work that will allow me to FI sooner, thus improving my health due to a lack of job stress and freeing up my time to pursuing meaningful actives. Or take slightly lower paying work that allow me to make an impact sooner, and as a result may prolong the time that it takes to reach FI.

Has anyone faced a similar issue? What did you do? I know that @olaz posted a thread awhile back talking about how his friends were going to work for non-profits, and how he felt guilty.

Any comments, or thoughts are welcome.

BRUTE
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Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:20 pm

Re: Meaningful Work vs High Paying Work

Post by BRUTE »

brute finds it hard in general to find meaning, especially meaning that lasts. most things that seem meaningful at first turn out to be pretty trivial, arbitrary, depending on a certain perspective or lack thereof. brute is too skeptical and open-minded to buy into these schemes for too long, and has therefore pretty much given up on meaning.

brute likes to substitute distraction from meaning.

in fact, they're the same thing, brute thinks.

daylen
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Location: Lawrence, KS

Re: Meaningful Work vs High Paying Work

Post by daylen »

@brute

Perhaps from your perspective meaning can be found in the critique (internal/external) of the meaning of other people (real/imaginary). :)

James_0011
Posts: 392
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2016 12:00 am

Re: Meaningful Work vs High Paying Work

Post by James_0011 »

@ brute

Case 1: assume as an initial condition that meaning exists, then how does one find it?

Should it be connected with ones career or not?

I think many people find meaning in raising a child, although this never made sense to me as in this situation one is only helping a single person instead of a group or a cause.

Case 2: assume as a condition that meaning does not exists, how does one keep on living in this case?

Is it possible to create meaning in your own head via delusion, and live this way?

Riggerjack
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Re: Meaningful Work vs High Paying Work

Post by Riggerjack »

So, the issue is to take high paying work that will allow me to FI sooner, thus improving my health due to a lack of job stress and freeing up my time to pursuing meaningful actives. Or take slightly lower paying work that allow me to make an impact sooner, and as a result may prolong the time that it takes to reach FI.
Riggerjack corrected to:

So, the issue is to take high paying work that will allow me to FI sooner, thus improving my health due to a lack of job stress and freeing up my time to pursuing meaningful actives. Or take lower paying work that allow me to lose interest/respect for formerly meaningful activities, and as a result may prolong the time that it takes to reach FI.


Honestly, work is for earning. Contribute to meaningful activities as you will, on a completely voluntary basis. Trying to wring money from passions kills passions, doesn't make enough money and eventually twists people. There is an entire industry promoting "follow your passion", do not volunteer to be grist for this mill.

Search "Passion" for all the threads on this subject.

BRUTE
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Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:20 pm

Re: Meaningful Work vs High Paying Work

Post by BRUTE »

daylen wrote:@brute

Perhaps from your perspective meaning can be found in the critique (internal/external) of the meaning of other people (real/imaginary). :)
if brute can't have meaning, nobody can!

Dragline
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Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:50 am

Re: Meaningful Work vs High Paying Work

Post by Dragline »

James_0011 wrote: I think many people find meaning in raising a child, although this never made sense to me as in this situation one is only helping a single person instead of a group or a cause.
Actually, you will likely find meaning more quickly and easily by helping one person at a time. It need not be a child, your own or anyone elses. But it does involve an individual relationship.

Framing meaning exclusively around groups or causes may limit your ability to find meaning, because you will waste a lot of time and effort looking for the perfect group or cause, which may not actually exist.

Lucky C
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Joined: Sat Apr 16, 2016 6:09 am

Re: Meaningful Work vs High Paying Work

Post by Lucky C »

James, for me the choice was obvious because I was already about halfway through my career when I discovered MMM and ERE. I've already been through several years of work without much "meaning" and it made sense to just stick with it. But a few points based on my experience:

I've worked for both a non-profit and for-profit in the same field. The non-profit advertises itself as a place to make a big difference and a Great Place to Work, but on a day-to-day basis it was a place where I designed and tested modules full of electronics. Then I went to the for-profit company, which advertises itself as having the best products and the best people, where I got a >20% pay boost for designing and testing the same types of modules full of electronics! The real difference between the non-profit and the for-profit was that you could be lazy at the non-profit: low productivity, not having to put everything in high quality documentation, and the days went by much slower. Switching to for-profit had the same level of "meaning" (still working on creating the same types of products just in a different environment), but provided a huge FI boost in terms of salary, bonuses, and time dilation (days go by at about 2x non-profit speed).

Of course you're probably talking about a bigger difference: a career making widgets vs. a job helping the community. Well how important is efficiency and productivity to you? Were you always pulling the weight in group projects and being annoyed at your unproductive team members? Does wasting time and resources really annoy you? If so, you might not like working in a non-profit where there is not much motivation to be efficient. However if you love discussing ideas at length over focusing on getting things done, you don't like being busy all day, and can't see yourself being consistently productive for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, maybe non-profit is better for you. These types of factors may be more important than what you're actually doing/creating. None of the individual contributors at work seem to think about the Big Picture on a regular basis, probably only when a high-level manager/director calls a meeting to present the big picture impact and ideas.

If you go the meaningless high-paying route and find yourself in a busy productive role, you will probably adjust to the narrow focus of your tasks and won't have much time to think about big picture meaning anyway. I focus on getting a document released, getting something built, getting something tested, shipping something to the customer. Completing these tasks and getting paid well for them is rewarding to me, even if I'm just a cog in a machine that isn't helping humanity all that much.

Scott 2
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Re: Meaningful Work vs High Paying Work

Post by Scott 2 »

In a "meaningless" job, you can still help your co workers earn the money that cares for their family. You can also help them develop skills to provide for themselves and their loved ones for life. I like my co-workers, so that's good enough for me.

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