On Money and Meaningful Jobs
Some days ago I had my usual Dutch class and we spoke about meaningful jobs. Since my teacher knows my story, she asked me to speak to introduce the topic. So, I spoke, but one of my classmates misunderstood my words (I guess?) and replied referring to my remarks that you have to combine ambitions with the money you need to have a proper life
Happy life = poor life?
I think there is a huge misconception about money and meaningful jobs.
A meaningful job is not coincidental with rejecting money or not having certain ambitions, but rather with the feeling that I wake up in the morning and I know I’m not going to waste my life.
When I help someone with the language, since I myself am well aware of how languages improve my life as an emigrant, I am helping them improving their life - and that's very cool.
That’s a meaningful life for me. I’m doing something positive and not just paperwork for the sake of paperwork.
What does it mean in practice?
Since apparently my classmate thinks I like being poor, here are some of the poor-things I’d like to do in the future:
• I want to travel my way. If I wake up one day I want to be able to spend like a month somewhere, for example Berlin, I get a flat for a month and I live and work there for 4 weeks having the feeling of how it is to be more of a local/foreign resident there, I don’t really care about the touristic side.
Since in my current job I don’t have random emergencies which are not emergencies anymore, I can keep everything under control and gain free time here and there. I’m working on my time management (thanks @vera.neurointegration.trainer once again, if you want to know more about this please check her profile), so it’s only going to improve.
• I want to have the possibility of buying a nice place in Brussels if I want to, better if almost without a loan.
• I want that if I need a surgery I can opt where to do it without caring about going fully private in Belgium or Italy in case of need, of course the chance is higher in Italy - or afford a very nice health insurance that can get my covered without that I care that much when I pay the monthly fee.
I gave up 2150€ per month (1900€ net) for what?
At the moment I feel better at making 1300€ gross per month with my own forces:
• working 5 hours per day or less,
• having a much lower level of anxiet
• properly enjoying my time off
• no surprise
• no need to ask for days off for medical appointments etc
• the chance that I can make much more because I have more time to learn, reflect and work on my own business model