work brouhaha.
Something Steve Pavlina said has struck me as the truth. "The best way to make a meaningful contribution is through your career."
My brother Troy (and I hope he doesn't mind if I share what he told me) told me once that everyone in the world has a DO>HAVE>BE model of looking at things:
you DO something > to HAVE something > to BE someone
(ex. you buy a car, to have status, to be someone)
He pointed out however that it's much better to have a BE>DO>HAVE model for work, or for life.
If you're BEING a good worker, you DO good work and you will HAVE compensation / acknowledgement worthy of your work. It doesn't even require you to BECOME something other than who you are already. ("Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve" -Napoleon Hill)
So, if you're being someone who's concerned about when the next sweldo will come (and to tell you the absolute truth, money's hard to come by, so sometimes I worry too), rather than being someone who adds value to his work, you only get the monetary satisfaction out of the work done, rather than the satisfaction of contributing to humanity. (And this is no exaggeration.)
To quote the very article I read:
"If you’re going to invest so much of your precious life into your career, make sure that career is worthy of you. Look at your work and ask, “Is this really who I am?” Even if the answer is no, please know that there is a “yes” waiting for you. You deserve much better than to spend the bulk of your time doing something that doesn’t fulfill you.
When you’re doing work that fulfills you, you’ll care about doing a good job. And when you care, you’ll become really good at what you do. And that makes it relatively easy to generate a sustainable income from your work."
...
Look at me, talking like a grown-up. :p