A choice that at first sight seems easy and logical to make may be complicated depending on certain circumstances. This WE's options are all very attractive. We could write more than one post on each option. I picked the first one.
This is my entry to 
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.
Money May not Buy Happiness, but...
A few years ago I might have chosen unequivocally the low-pay job that I love over any well-paid job that I hate.
Now, it’s different. I have had enough of restricted budget. I have had enough of doing what I love, even if it is not rewarded. There are circumstances under which doing what one loves stop having any impact at all and the lack of recognition or financial reward becomes a load too heavy to carry.
Under certain circumstances doing what we love, just for the sake of it, regardless of the consequences, may be a negation of or betrayal to our self-love or self-respect. No singer performs for an empty auditorium. No writer writes without a readership.
Happiness under poverty is an illusion, a romantic notion put to the test every day with every incident that requires more than just a positive mind and an easygoing attitude. You can’t just smile to hunger or sickness in the assurance that you are at peace with yourself and you have those you love with you. Even in total solitude, happiness in poverty is an act of denial. It gets worse when there are people around you who depend on you.
Our inability to provide the most basic resources to satisfy the most fundamental needs makes it hard to have a harmonious atmosphere around us.
A low-pay job that I love cannot last too long. Sooner or later, like the passion of young lovers, it will burn out, wilt, or dry before the blows of limitations and loss. A restricted budget in certain places makes it impossible to stay healthy, for instance, and health is a prerequisite to perform any job we love with responsibility, love, and passion.
True, some jobs, if we hate them, may rot us to the core. However, not all detestable jobs affect our daily lives. I’d rather take a job I may not enjoy, but which pays well enough for me to be a responsible adult and enjoy the little pleasures of life with those I love. The satisfaction of covering my family’s expenses can be a shield to stand the blows of tediousness until the pleasure of a safe, well-fed, and well-provided family replenish the vital energy needed to keep going.
I love teaching more than anything else in the world, but I find no consolation in furthering some kids education (most of which actually do not want to be educated—That has been a painful generation shift I am experiencing first hand) if I will starve or cause my family to starve, see myself or my loved ones wither to death (as it has become customary here now), or become dependent on public charity.
Most Venezuelan professionals these days can’t afford any medical emergency and we are constantly bombarded by charity campaigns or desperate cries for help that usually end up in the expected loss of young lives who died only because money was an issue. Every day we see passionate professionals who literally gave their lives for their jobs and their employers did not even provide them with a decent burial.
I would take the tedious job a thousand times as long as my family lacks nothing and I can draw a smile in their faces every time they need me to share with them or provide them with something that makes them happy (not necessarily material things). A simple thing like traveling or visiting friends and relatives has become almost impossible now. Loving a job that does not even allow us to do that, makes little sense to me. No job deserves to be loved more than ourselves and those around us.
Ideally, we should not have to make this hard choice. All jobs should be well-paid so that all basic needs are covered. Current global resentment and social turmoil is somehow related to governments/systems inability or unwillingness to fairly reward human effort, talent, and commitment.
We may find happiness in the little things (a walk in the park, a good book or conversation, or a drink), but those little things provide happiness only after the big things have been taken care of and cast no shawdows.
