I have less experience in this area of balancing work and other resources to make a living, as I have just graduated from university (post grad – see my background here). What I can do is answer the question in the brief: What do you look for when you look for work? Money, obviously. Security? The opportunity to contribute to society, to build something useful? A feeling of belonging?
I have never looked at my professional future as being dependent on monetary issues or had any relationship with money whatsoever, as opposed to Vinay’s fabulous story. I never thought of salary as a reward for my work because I just had other priority indicators to measure my satisfaction with own work- not revenues, but quality. For me, an indicator of success in making a living so far has been knowledge and personal growth in no matter what I would do. What’s very important is to be able to do my work well, really well, and gain some recognition – even verbal recognition from someone would suffice at this point, because I am under the impression that intellectual work is really hard to get paid at this age and lack of skills. maybe I’m wrong, or maybe I haven’t lived enough or in misery to really talk about the value of work, having work, and money.
Being 24 and with high career expectations is great as long as you have confirmation that you’re on the right path. And that’s enough for me because there are means of survival available, in my case support from close people.
And somehow I’ve managed to get exactly where I’d wanted to get – I now have my first job or gig as people here seem to name it (=paid job) which is more important than the other work I’ve done for free as a student and that I keep doing because it creates opportunities. Why is it more important? because it is better defined in terms of learning outputs, duration, responsibilities and does come with security. Financial security as well, I won’t lie, but this is provisional anyway, after that who knows… But security in terms of confidence in that I can find job even in this blurry, deep-in-crisis job market we know of, and that job can be of my own choice. Of course, I invested a lot to be able to have this temporary job. I went to summer schools, trainings and an internship, all of which I had to pay for from a 100$ per month university scholarship saved. But I always did it with the feeling that I am growing and that I am lucky to be able to do them. I didn’t have to take up waitressing to support myself, so even that’s a huge gain – affording to fully invest in oneself.
About investment in another mission – Bring on the allies; my report is coming soon .