This feels like an ivory tower take. I worked at a job reentry program. The difference in outcomes between those working hard and those not looked pretty stark to me. Ignore the billionaires. Focus on what you can control.
One of the most financially rewarding career moves I've ever made was to give up the manual labor jobs I had as an field archaeologist and start focusing on "easier" tech jobs. Hard work is at best mildly correlated with financial rewards, though a 5 minute conversation with most workers would quickly disabuse you of even that notion.
I had a similar thought process in my teens, my dad was a building surveyor which was a very middle class job back in the day. But it dawned on me that there's only so many building you can walk in and look at in a day, limiting your upside potential.
It seems that you are paid for how many lives you affect (and to a lesser degree - by how much you affect them), rather than how much work you do.
Comments
This feels like an ivory tower take. I worked at a job reentry program. The difference in outcomes between those working hard and those not looked pretty stark to me. Ignore the billionaires. Focus on what you can control.
One of the most financially rewarding career moves I've ever made was to give up the manual labor jobs I had as an field archaeologist and start focusing on "easier" tech jobs. Hard work is at best mildly correlated with financial rewards, though a 5 minute conversation with most workers would quickly disabuse you of even that notion.
I had a similar thought process in my teens, my dad was a building surveyor which was a very middle class job back in the day. But it dawned on me that there's only so many building you can walk in and look at in a day, limiting your upside potential.
It seems that you are paid for how many lives you affect (and to a lesser degree - by how much you affect them), rather than how much work you do.
This is brilliant observation!
This is a good point. If you think about it everyone is successful for a given low enough threshold for success.
Taking a particular job seriously is better than not taking it seriously.
Getting a different, better, job can make a bigger difference. If you can both find one and qualify for it.
What parts of the hard work did you see as most effective in improving outcomes?
I'll answer for me it's a situation where more effort translates to more progress.
Whether it's progress toward success or away from failure, and whether the success or failure are financial or not.
So I like to work to build a situation like that so that further effort pays off the most.