Should you study what you love or what makes you money? The proverb “money can’t buy happiness” has some truth but not that whole truth. Money can’t buy happiness but it can solve most people’s problems. I am going to talk about money and happiness in the United States because in our post-industrialized nation, many of us can actually afford to dream about this kind of existential choice. Being poor or even just making ends meet is not fun or glamorous. On the flip side doing a job that doesn’t excite you can make you easily as miserable for different reasons. Being pragmatic just isn’t sexy.
Let’s start with the basics, Princeton economist Angus Deaton and famed psychologist Daniel Kahneman conducted research that money can buy you happiness up to $75,000. Imagine making that much a year? What that means is that a lot of your problems will go away when you reach a salary of $75,000 a year but any amount above that has little psychological satisfaction. Money can forgive your debt, it can ensure your health to a certain degree, it can afford you spa days and delicious food but it can’t buy you friendship, love or immortality. It will get you about 2.5 notches in Maslow’s Pyramid but not to the tippity top.
So, when you think of it this way: $75,000 is the actual minimum anyone should have in order to fulfill their human potential. If you didn’t have to worry about paying rent, health insurance, car insurance, all those basic needs on Maslow’s pyramid, we could devote time to be better citizens, people and employees. (This is my communist utopian fantasy.)
The reality is making $75,000 a year is a fantasy for most people. Not only is it unattainable as a means of following your passion but you’d feasibly have to be able to pay for training or college to make that much cash in adulthood.
Now let’s get to the fundamental American truth that most millennials are reeling from: going to college does not mean you will get a job so following your passion is not always a viable option. Going to college more realistically means you will incur debt, you will be in the negative entering adulthood. With that said: do you incur that debt having studied something that made you happy and enlightened or do you incur that debt having studied something that will allow you to eventually break even? Furthermore, it isn’t a difficult conclusion to draw that if you are disinterested in the subjects you’re studying you probably won’t perform all that well as a student.
You don’t want to end up like Bartleby The Scrivner, so unfulfilled you die and wither away on the inside and then on the outside.
I am posing these questions not in defense of any particular major because there will always be majors more profitable than others and this will always change with the changing market and economy. I chose to follow my passions, I studied popular culture, I owe around $90,000 in student loans, I have a job that pays me a little over a third of that a year. I can afford to live in a competitive city to a certain degree but I cannot afford to save money or health insurance. I am being honest, not asking for sympathy or praise, because I think this is a realistic version of what many people will encounter at my age of 24. I have a good life but most of my strifes are financial. This isn’t a bad thing now, I am young and have time to grow in my career. Adversity and hustle is character building.
I will never make a ton of money and I am fine with that, as long as I can afford to sustain my existence and maybe even indulge some of my senses with material possessions. Yet, there are certain things I will never be able to do because I will never have the money to them. European vacations? Maybe when I am 30. Maybe. I will also probably never pay off my debt. If you’re OK with leading an unglamorous life, with sporadic and unpredictable financial woes, that is ultimately more fulfilling than not, then maybe taking the risk of pursuing your passion is for you.
But then there is there argument to be made in favor of money. Oooooo, sweet delicious money. Leisure time. All the pretty things. Your life could be your Pinterest board if you make the correct decisions. For lots of people the kind of jobs that pay a lot of money fit their passions exactly, for others their 60-hour work weeks are a serious drag on the soul. I have a friend who, due to a series of heartless and indifferent academic advisors, is pursuing a career as a doctor. He is miserable but in too deep to pull out now. He’s really into film though. Too bad.
In spite of the hippie part of me that believes we should all chose enlightenment over money, I know this isn’t completely true. Money is too important in a society anchored in capitalism. If boredom is your biggest fear of chasing that paper, well rest assured that money can buy you lots of entertainment and the resources to pursue the things you are passionate about. If the inherent corruption involved in a lot of the jobs that make you money (see: Big Business, Big Tobacco, Monsanto, and the Wolf of Wall Street), then understand that though atrocity is objective, morality is subjective and it’s up to you to decide what kind of industries you’re willing to support because they pay your bills. I love fashion but I wouldn’t want to be involved because, you know, I value female self esteem.
To wrap this all up: what I mean to say is while I don’t feel as though I made a mistake pursuing the thing that made me happy, which is writing, popular culture American history and post-Marxist theory, I am not going to pretend like that pursuit hasn’t costed me and won’t continue to cost me. I won’t pretend like it’s not going to cost you and it’s up to you to assess what you are willing to risk. The same way it’s up to you to decide if college is even a relevant path to self-actualization or even a job.
Nevertheless, there is nothing wrong with chasing that sweet, scrumptious, ideal $75,000 a year. After all, in one way or another we all are. We all need food, health and security. We all need 75 Gs a year to look fresh to death and buy green kale smoothies. At the end of the day we’re all just chasing the top of the pyramid: the pursuit of happiness. If you can find a shortcut, take it.
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