Post #56750 by Kim on Fri, Oct 24, 2003 2:48 PM

By which, I mean, do you/would you rather:

Work at a job you dislike/don’t care about in order to finance what you love to do (be it tiki, drinking mai tais, or whatever)?

Or

Work at a job you love, although it may not be as financially rewarding?

Major complicating factors include: kids, primarily, though in this forum, I bet that expensive but not-very lucrative hobbies are also big. I.E. “I don’t like my job, but my (kids, carving, home bar) provides so much personal fulfillment that I don’t mind”.

Please comment—and please keep in mind, this is not intended to inspire acrimony or impinge anyone’s personal choices; I want to know what’s making people happy/sad/how they feel about the effect their job/career has on their life. I know there has been some discussion about this issue before in other threads, but I'd like to know what people think.

If you’re curious, I’m asking because I’m currently waffling between going to graduate school and changing careers to something I really love (which will pay me diddly, if I can get a job), or going back to banking or something in the for-profit sector, because I’m sick of being broke...