If someone paid you loads of money to do a really boring job, would you do it?

Someone asked me this question the other day. A great discussion starter as it pits two parts of career satisfaction against each other: the need to earn a living versus the need to be mentally stimulated. Many people would agree with me that the ideal would be a meaningful combination of the two, yet when faced with the prospect of only one of the two, we have a dilemma.

As life has it, we all need some form of income to survive, so not having one is not really an option. Our culture has also shifted to measuring success by amount of wealth acquired, and signalling this achievement through the objects one owns. These are all thrown in our face on a daily basis by richer individuals so it is easy to think: ‘if I only had more money I would be happier’. However what nobody tells you is that money doesn’t breed contentment and neither does poverty so obviously there is a balance to be reached. However, the enemy of greed is contentment so how to be contented?

There are three routes to contentment and while I believe that one can aim for one route only, greater satisfaction or contentment can be achieved by addressing a combination of the three routes. These are:

1. Wealth
2. Altruism
3. Creativity

The blessings of wealth are easy to imagine and we can all think of things we would do if we had just a little bit more money. However, the happiness derived from acquiring objects is short-lived and opens us up to desiring more, very soon.

Altruism is another avenue and I would argue that anyone involved in the caring professions, medicine, charity work, social services or even volunteer work are partially or entirely motivated by this. Altruism gives you the opportunity to create meaning in your life by being meaningful to someone else. This is something we all long for, but mostly we tend to settle for just being there for our loved ones, extending a helping hand to a stranger seems odd, if not even outright scary in our modern, safety-obsessed world.

Lastly, I mention creativity. Everyone gets given a box of crayons in kindergarten, yet some of us go off into making creativity the heart of our professional life. Many assume creativity means painting pretty pictures and being artistic, but creativity takes many forms - one frequently quoted is the ability to problem-solve. The satisfaction of solving a difficult problem, regardless of what profession you are in, is you manifesting your creativity and deriving satisfaction from it.

So if someone paid me loads of money to do a really boring job, would I do it? I can’t say yes or no for sure, but I would find out what the job was, how much I would get paid and how much of my time it would take up, and for how long I needed to do it, before moving on. Why? Well, it is foolish to think that our day jobs will be able to single-handedly satisfy all the needs of stimulation we need, all the time, without fail. No doubt it is a benefit to be able to have as many of the things that you really enjoy (learning, variation, creativity, social interaction, responsibility, challenges, great salary etc.) in your day job, but it is just as important to understand what those needs are that you have and make alternate plans if you aren’t getting what you need from work. If you end up having a dull job, don’t just settle for that and spend your life feeling depressed and undervalued. Take time to understand what it is that you need in your life to be stimulated, contented and continuously developing and make sure you have those elements as part of your spare time instead. That way you can put up with a boring job and still be happy.

Comments

[Canada Goose Jacket]

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[wolske]

As long as it didn't bind me to a long-term commitment, I would absolutely do a boring job for boatloads of money. While there, I could channel my creative and altruistic desires into my time off work (which, if the pay was enough, could be a substantial portion of the year).

Even if it was 16hrs a day 7 days a week (for seriously beaucoup bucks) -- save as much as possible for a period of time, enough that you would never have to work again. Of course, I would continue to work in some capacity or another, but I could do what I really want (again, creative/altruistic), and not just do what provides the best life balance (salary, hours, stress, personal fulfillment).