Passion verses Money – a different story When I graduated university, with CS, I had a number of friends who were biology majors. Myself I had a passion for C

Passion verses Money – a different story When I graduated university, with CS, I had a number of friends who were biology majors. Myself I had a passion for CS so I was fortunate in that way. My friends who were biology majors all had a passion for biology. To them their choice was as obvious as mine. We all obtained jobs after university. Mine was a 50 to 60 hours a week doing SW development, which I loved. The biology majors, at that time and location, could only find a job at the waste processing plant. Sadly their pay was just above minimum wage. All of them lamented to me how they regretted their degree and wish they had been like me and had a degree in something that paid well. Roll forward a few years and I am working at another company and I, and half the other software engineers get laid off. Went from 200 to about 100. Of the 100 of us let go, about 30 of the people, who had been in SW development for a number of years, all cried, “Thank GOD! I have always hated this”. This surprised me. I naively assumed everyone would do what they loved. End result (TL;DR): Step 1 – what will make you enough money to make you happy – (need to really analyze what you need to be happy, the answer of a 6 figure salary is too flippant to be accurate). Step 2 - List those jobs that pay enough. Step 3 - Of those jobs trim out jobs you would hate or are incapable of. Step 4 - With the remaining apply a financial delta based on how much it is worth to you to do a job you love verses a job you are willing to do. Having said all of that I am looking to taking a lesser job soon as I do not enjoy my current type of work as much as I thought I would.