The Almighty Dollar

It's always about the money, isn't it? Go to college and you'll make X number of dollars more than someone with only a high school diploma. There was another one of those stories a few days ago. If you want the big bucks, get a degree in engineering. That's the hot ticket today.

I hope some people give young folks different advice. Go to college, that's fine, but pick out a field you really love and forget where it ranks on the pay scale. Work at a job that makes you eager to leap out of bed in the morning and get to work. Maybe you won't have an oversize house in a fancy suburb or drive a luxury model car or have the biggest TV screen on the block, but you will love the life you're leading.
Whenever you hear someone talk about early retirement you know they have wasted their life doing the wrong kind of work, have missed their chance at true fulfillment all for the safe and steady paycheck. They worked for money, not love, not pleasure, not fun. They missed out on passion.

While working for Pinkerton's I had three secret (undercover) assignments at places where going to work was less enjoyable than going to the dentist. At the worst of the lot a youth of nineteen spent his first day's lunch break asking about the company's retirement benefits. Hearing that, I lost my appetite.

A lot of people feel like that young fellow, of course. They are willing to spend their best years in drudgery for the sake of security that in reality doesn't exist.

My advice to any young person is enter a field you love. If it's being an engineer, fine. If' it's being a carpenter, that's fine too. Don't let money influence your decision. If you do, that may be about all you ever get out of life. Money, no matter how much of it you may acquire, can't buy happiness. Life shouldn't be about how much you have but how much you enjoy.

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