Priorities
I had an insight into my own motivation this past weekend that surprised me for its simplicity. It was about priorities in my life. My dad helped me define them, though that’s quite the opposite of what he had in mind. Let me explain.
Very recently, I quit a well-paying but not very interesting job to take one that pays somewhat less but affords me greater freedom. Specifically, I can work from a home office and have a somewhat flexible schedule. Because of the job change, we’re selling our house and buying a new one in a lower cost of living area. As a result, my wife will again stay home to raise our younger child for a couple of years, just as she did for our daughter.
This past weekend at a family event, my father asked about the new job. I hadn’t discussed it with him (or many other people for that matter) at all before quitting my former job and starting this one. He was understandably interested and asked the usual questions. But one in particular surprised me; I was even more surprised by my answer.
Father: “So, what will you be doing?”
Me: Blah, blah, blah
Father: “What’s the next step up?”
Me: “What do you mean?”
Father: “The career path. How do you move up? What are the steps to become the next CEO?”
Me: “I don’t know. I don’t really care, either.”
That brought the conversation to a screeching halt. I think I was as surprised as my father by my answer.
It was one of those times when my unconscious came out without me analyzing everything. Work, for me, is a means to an end. That’s why I found myself agreeing with a recent post by Meg at All Financial Matters about how finding personal fulfillment through vocation is overrated.
My priorities are my family and my marriage. Everything else is a distant second. As hard as it evidently is for my father (and many other people, I’m sure) to understand, I’m living my life according to that priority.
I’ll take that over being the CEO any day of the week. And twice on the weekends. Or as they’re known to my little girl, “Mommy-Daddy days.”
January 15th, 2008 at 11:33 am
While CEOs make more money and have more prestige, the cost of earning that position in time and relationships just doesn’t seem worthwhile to me. Unless I were single and was really interested in my line of work.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
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January 18th, 2008 at 7:58 am
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January 18th, 2008 at 8:02 am
You’ll never hear much older people say this wish they spent more time working on their careers, but you’ll usually hear them say they wish they spent more time with their family.
January 18th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
I’ve always pretty much agreed with this attitude. I’ve kept the same job since college because it has paid me plenty, allows me all sorts of flexibility in my schedule thus making it easy to be a soccer coach, or attend school functions etc. I think you show great maturity.
I will however add some caution. Eventually, the irritants of a job you don’t love will add up. I still have my awesome, well paying, super flexible job, but at age 34 it is killing me. Eventually, a true passion for your daily tasks will be much more important. It’s easy to spend 1/2 of your waking hours performing not-bad-but-not-great tasks when you and your family are young. For me anyway, that task is much harder now.
That of course does not mean that we need to climb aboard the promotion express. Rather keep the decent job and the family first mentatlity, but try to find something that matches your passion too.