I’ve always known that my life would lead me down the road in hot pursuit of truth and adventure, but a conversation I had with a friend one day over our aspirations put my world into perspective.
“Journalism is a good way to starve. They make no money, but you die doing what you love,” she said, and I began to think.
I can’t tell you the first time I started reporting. It’s not that I can’t remember, but rather that there was never a definite beginning. There was never one specific start to my learning, just like there was never really a beginning to my growth. I just learned. I just grew. And, similarly to these natural human processes, I just began to tell stories. From that bud blossomed my passion – the pursuit of happiness that can only be found in the form of journalism.
However, in a world plagued by consumerism and greed, we often let ourselves be held back in our pursuit of happiness by the chains of monetary gain. Limited by the desire to be better and wealthier than those around or before us, we may even settle being unhappy or disinterested in a job that pays more than enjoying what we do in an environment with a smaller payroll.
When I spent last summer in D.C at the Georgetown University campus, I met a boy by the name of Perry. Perry, by definition, was ambitious and charming – his desire to achieve and excel greater than most. He sat down beside me late one night in our common room, laptop in hand and prepared to compare editorial articles, and instead began to unfurl his aspirations. His family members had all been doctors, and he was expected to follow suit without question, but his interest in the medical field was slim to none. What would make him happy if money wasn’t a variable, he explained, was psychology. I still get phone calls from him every few weeks, excited and enthralled by a new theory or observation that simply has to be shared.
Yale released its study on the psychological effects of money on humans back in 2009, where test subjects had to unscramble phrases relating to money or work at a table that had Monopoly money positioned on top of it. Then, subjects were taken to another room where they were tested to see how willing they were to help others and how willing they were to ask for help themselves. The results found that not only were people less willing to help others and ask for help themselves after being subliminally reminded of money, but that they’re sensitivity to physical and emotional pain had been dulled.
Whether one blames the declining global economy of today or the pressure put on us from ancestors of the past, money has become the center of all evils. Instead of casting happiness and potential to the wayside in place of a hefty paycheck, remember that if you spend your life doing what you love, you will never work a day in your life. Perhaps, instead of compromising enjoyment of life for money, we should reprioritize, placing more importance on how we create long-lasting, merry lives than how we decorate them with trappings and tapestries. A life full of laughter is a life well lived.
That’s priceless.