Today my family had the day off from work so we decided to have a family gathering and talk about our life experiences. What I got out of the gathering was something I did not expect.
Being Happy at Work Versus Earning More Money
Many of my elder relatives talked about their experiences of transferring withing their company or moving to a different company mainly for getting a boost in salary. However all had the regret for doing so because their new jobs meant developing new relationships and expanding their network of people. There was difficult in gaining trust and building relationships that often took a long time and a lot of energy that the additional money could not compensate.
Some had worked for 10+ years with the same people and many have found that although they left their old company when they had issues or problems they tend to fall back on the people they had worked with. They all said most of their time working with people who they consider as friends is much better than earning more money.
The worst feeling is to be isolated from a team. Especially in occupations that requires team effort. Without a group of people working together it becomes a challenge to finish the task without compromising the quality of work. Furthermore communication breakdown among team members will lead to further production deterioration. All in all this trickles down to worker's personal lives because the problems at work will become a nuisance in one's daily lives.
The greater amount of money may offset the troubles of work for temporarily due to instant gratification. The purchase of a new car, a new tv, and all sorts of material will make people excited, but the continuous struggles at work will eventually over shadow the material gains.
Time Versus Money
In a somewhat similar issue with more money is the similar rise in responsibilities. It is always a good thing to being promoted at one's workplace. Yet at what point in one's career is work overshadowing one's personal life. The gain in wealth can only go so far without the time to spend it.
One of my relatives never had children and although he did not admit his regret he has remorse as to how much time he put into work while he was younger. The accreditation and rewards at the time was the only things on his mind, yet the time to build a personal relationship was lacking. He admitted he felt fortunate to get marry even though he was so in trenched at work.
Another relative talked about how much time he dedicated to his job but when the time came to layoffs he was let go without any compensation. One can not take work personal but a business decision. Yet we are human and wish to be treated as such. The relative had assumed main reason for his removal was his higher salary for tasks that could be done for less.
The concern of an occupation going offshore was discussed in-dept. The conclusion was business are trying to achieve better bottom lines every year and as the economy is rising each year it is becoming more and more difficult for companies to reach higher profits for consecutive years. Therefore cutting cost by hiring lower paid people and using less people to do the same work has become ways of making more for the companies.
Finding Happiness in Life
From all our discussions the main theme was each of us was trying to find our happiness in life. We tend to forget that most of our lives we spend it at the workplace. When you consider in a 24 hour day at least 8 hours goes to the job, 8 to sleep, then what is left is 8 for personal use. There is the weekends too but often times people tend to deal with work obligations even on a weekend as many jobs are now fully network so expectations of responding to emails and phone calls are immediate. This leads to less downtime and more work.
There has to be a happy medium between work and life. As the saying goes "We work to live. Not live to work." How much money one earns in working helps them reach closer to happiness, but it does not mean they earn happiness. The environment they enjoy living in whether through work and in personal lives is what makes happiness. I hope all of us can one day find that medium and live our lives being productive citizens for the good of society and still achieve happiness.
Thanks for reading.