Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It's easy to feel inadequate if a.)you're used to using salary as a yardstick for success and b.)you think that everyone is making more money than you are. But, salary is only one part of the picture. My aunt and uncle, for all intents and purposes, "appear" successful because they make good money, have a nice house, take vacations...but they are in debt up to their eyeballs and they drink every day. I used to be in a management position, working 70 hours a week, and I was miserable. I now make 80% of what I used to make, but now I only work 40 hours and am a lot happier.
Sure, money is important - no one wants to be broke - but it's not the be-all and end-all. I used to think that success was all about money and status, but since then have expanded my definition to include intangibles such as balance and an inner sense of peace. You never know, some of the people that you know with higher salaries could be using that "extra" money to try to quell a sense of dissatisfaction within themselves. And, don't forget, we are in a tumultuous situation economically in this country. Those same people could be unemployed tomorrow.
You never know what's going on behind closed doors, or what tomorrow holds. Define success for yourself and stay strong.
OP, I swear I could have written your post myself. I don't have a master's but I can relate to almost everything you wrote. My friends make much more than I do. I think about money a lot. Not that I would scheme or steal but I always think about having a better salary and what I would do with the extra money. What really frustrates me is that I live in NYC and my salary is very low for the COL. And like you it does make me feel like a loser sometimes.
All your life you are told to study hard, get good grades and the degree and the big bucks will come and it's not always true.
I think with a master's you should earn more than 40K BUT I have also heard of other people who have master's and only make in the 40's and some of them live in NYC.
I hope you find something soon. I'm going to start looking at a new job too. Just wanted to say you're not alone.
OP, I swear I could have written your post myself. I don't have a master's but I can relate to almost everything you wrote. My friends make much more than I do. I think about money a lot. Not that I would scheme or steal but I always think about having a better salary and what I would do with the extra money. What really frustrates me is that I live in NYC and my salary is very low for the COL. And like you it does make me feel like a loser sometimes.
All your life you are told to study hard, get good grades and the degree and the big bucks will come and it's not always true.
I think with a master's you should earn more than 40K BUT I have also heard of other people who have master's and only make in the 40's and some of them live in NYC.
I hope you find something soon. I'm going to start looking at a new job too. Just wanted to say you're not alone.
Thanks I appreciate it. And hopefully things will change for us both real soon!
Success of what is the question. Financial success? Well it's one of several important metrics for financial success. But if you're asking about fitness success... salary is a metric which plays little or no role in determining success.
It's not all about the money. Just do the best you can with what you have. Develop good habits, learn to save/invest. And most important, have realistic wants, hopes, and dreams. Learn to live below your means.
Work is not your life. It finances your life. I know it's fashionable these days to expect satisfaction from a job. Some people do have jobs they love and that's great. But they are a distinct minority and most people work for money...not for love of the job. We are not all entitled to jobs that provide us with satisfaction and identity. If we were, we would be a nation full of rock stars and billionaire CEO's. No matter what they try to tell you, someone still has to sell the soap, wash the dishes, and sweep the floors. And it's much more likely you(and most others) will never get the chance to be billionaire CEO rock stars.
Constantly comparing yourself to others and having unrealistic expectations will do nothing but make you unhappy. You will spend too much of your time and effort wanting things you don't have. By all means, do what you can to improve your station in life. Just don't waste the life you have pining away for what you don't have.
Am I crazy to feel unsuccessful because I don’t make a lot of money? Or is this just society’s ingraining on me?
You're not crazy; it's fairly normal. But it IS society's ingraining, as you put it. Salary is a utilitarian thing; you need a sufficient level to maintain your desired standard of living. Beyond that, anything else put into it is based on ego and appearances one wishes to impart on others. I make a good salary, and a lot of my peers drive nice cars while I drive a used Hyundai. Looking at that car, one could make a wide variety of assumptions about my income being much lower than it is. But to me, the real point of making enough money is to free myself from money issues to a sufficient degree, not to enslave myself to it through my conspicuous consumption. And even if I up my salary further, there is always someone I know who has earned even more...that race never ends.
I think a better question to ask is this: "is salary the best determinant for happiness?" You can put a lot of time and effort into increasing your earnings and projecting an image of success to others around you, but your time in this world is ultimately limited - so you have to prioritize. You need to make some wise investments to put yourself into a sustainable position to earn what you deem to be a sufficiently comfortable standard of living. Beyond that, you need to ask yourself if, when you're getting ready for that final rest and time is ticking down, you're going to look back on your life and wish that you spent even more time in the office at the expense of other things so that you had increased your consumable budget and impressed more people.
I ask this because I have been struggling for the past few years with feelings of inadequacy because I do not earn a good salary and I am the lowest paid of my peers and friends.
Growing up, I was always very career driven and wanted to rise to the highest ranks career-wise but reality turned out very differently and I’ve found myself much, much lower than I’d like and my career nearly in the toilet. I’m working diligently on making some better career moves and earning more money but what gets me is how badly I feel for earning the low salary that I do and feeling unsuccessful (and kinda like a loser) because of it.
So help me out with this:
Am I crazy to feel unsuccessful because I don’t make a lot of money? Or is this just society’s ingraining on me?
Is salary really the best determinant for success? If a janitor is the best janitor on his team but earns $10 an hour, is he successful?
If a CEO slacks off and doesn’t contribute much to his company but earns $1 mil annually, is he still successful?
It’s been made clear from posts on this board that for my educational attainment and current salary (master’s degree and <$40k annually) that there is something very wrong with my current situation. Should I feel bad? I want very badly to not allow my earnings to determine my happiness, self worth and achievement…but I feel like the messages I get are that I am an underachiever because of it. And there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t feel unhappy about it. Should I? Should I not?
Thoughts?
Life ain't a sprint. It's a marathon.
Here's the thing. There are a lot of people on this board who use salary as the sole determinant of success. Without giving you a bunch of airy-fairy nonsense about finding your bliss, I think it's still important that you realize that fulfillment has value that won't make it on any balance sheet.
I know lawyers making well into six-figure incomes whose sense of dread at the coming day's work means they can barely lift themselves out of bed in the morning. And I know people just getting by who happily get up every morning and get down to the office.
So if you use money as the yardstick, it won't be very satisfying long-term. Instead, I would offer that it has to be a mix of both. What's more, your happiness can't be measured against that of others. I realize that is out of character with the personal finance board, but that's just the way life is.
Now, back to the larger question. If you are dissatisfied with your salary right now, then you need to come to grips with three different concepts:
1) You need to have some kind of plan for a career that will get you to the right level of pay. And you need to make the necessary sacrifices to get you to that point.
2) You need to realize that, especially in the early stages of your career, that certain professions pay better at the onset, but don't necessarily lead to the big bucks later on. My degree was in English while any number of my friends became CPAs and engineers. Today, my net worth is such that I don't have to slog into a full-time job anymore. I consult for clients all over the country and have developed passive revenue streams. In short, I made some savvy decisions along the way and worked my butt off. Fast forward to twenty years after graduation, and a hardworking humanities major will be outearning a 9-to-5 engineer or computer guy any day of the week.
3) You need to be realistic about what's holding you back. Is it the intangibles such as how you dress and deport yourself in the workplace? Are you investing the extra time to learn everything you can about your industry? As I told a college student just yesterday, in five years it won't matter what you studied in college--but it will definitely matter what you're studying today in the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Forbes, et al.
So good luck. The first step is realizing that you're not happy with where you are. The challenge is mapping out a strategy to where you want to be.
Dollar amount has nothing to do with how successful a person happens to be. Look at all the overpaid athletes that can't get off of the bench, because they are just not good enough to get in the game. If money was the only determining factor, they would still be successful and they are not. The pay certain jobs pull down completely makes no sense in our culture. If you are good at what you do and enjoy what you do, then you are successful.
Money is important but it does not make you happy. How much money would you need to make to feel accomplished? You have a Master's degree and own a home. I think most people would look at you with admiration. There is nothing wrong with striving for more but you need to stop and smell the roses.
Last edited by goodlife36; 02-11-2012 at 06:46 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
