Posted by Canadian Dream on October 13, 2009
I was watching a TV show (on DVD) the other day that brought up an interesting debate should you keep a job that will help change the world or take one that makes you happy? Of course I rarely see things in completely black and white and thought why can’t you do both?
Then if you add in a requirement for a decent salary of course getting a job like that is going to be next to impossible. It does happen to the lucky few, but really most of us just have to and accept a job that is missing one or more of those items. After all job satisfaction is good, but it really isn’t happiness most of the time. Also I’m keeping the definition of changing the world rather open here to include helping just one person to have a better life all the way up to changing how everyone sees the world. So then what do you pick: money, changing the world or happiness as the primary reason you take a job?
My current day job I’ll have to admit it was a tie between changing the world and money for me. I knew taking the job I would be entering a work culture steep in tradition and one that is resistant to change. So basically I was guessing staying happy at this job would be difficult, so far I think I’ve been right. I’m not unhappy or miserable at the job, but I’m not happy every day either. I do manage to be satisfied at my job most days.
Meanwhile I pursue happiness via my writing where I certainly don’t expect to change the world or make decent money. If either of those do occur it will strictly be a byproduct rather than the focus of this job.
Therefore in the end I still mange to do all three, but just not in the same job. Which I think is often over looked by people. You don’t have to get everything you need in life from one job. It’s ok to have second job or hobby the fills in the void in your main job.
So with that in mind I suppose that is part of the reason I’m looking to become finanically independent. I want to do work that doesn’t need to worry about the money aspect anymore and then just take jobs based on changing the world or being happy.
How about you? What was the primary reason you took your job: money, changing the world or happiness and why?
Posted by Canadian Dream on October 9, 2009
Well if you have ever wondered “Why do we keep sending money to Africa in the form of aid? It’s been 50 years, so why aren’t things better yet?” Then you NEED to read Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo an economist that was born in Zambia so she has a ground level view of the problems facing Africa and proposes some very different ideas on how to solve them.
First Dambisa breaks off aid into two parts: emergency aid and on going aid. She rightly points out emergency aid will always have a place in the world. A disaster can ruin the lives of thousands and sometimes the country can not afford to deal with itself. Aid in that case is fine. It’s the on going aid in the form of grants or loans that are extended or forgiven that is a problem.
In a rather unflinching view she peals away our illusions about the billions of dollars of aid and points out numerous studies to back up her up on the fact that aid has failed for 50 years to improve the lives of most Africans on a whole. In fact she points out aid has enabled corruption on a massive scale in many of these countries because we collective keep giving it. Basically there is no incentive not to be corrupt, if you steal the money they just keep sending you more next year. Meanwhile the population keeps having the same level of poverty.
Another example is a well meaning donation of foreign made mosquitoes nets to an area would wipe out any local producers of that product which would result in further poverty to those that used to work in making those nets. Then after the donated nets wear out there is no local manufacturing to buy a replacement net. The aid ends up in the long run making things worse.
So she proposes an idea: give every leader in Africa a call telling them in five years the on going aid will be turned off. Then introduce them into other ways to fund their governments or see their infrastructure which do have consequences like: the bond market or foreign investment from China (or other countries) in infrastructure projects in exchange for natural resources.
Will her ideas work? Well actually there is a fairly good chance they would work. She points out a few examples how bits of the program she is proposing has helped some African nations. She also points out rightly doing this would be difficult. She doesn’t hide behind the fact that getting these nations off aid is going to be easy. Yet in the long run it might be the better way than keep pouring in aid dollars into a system that obviously hasn’t worked.
Overall this was an eye opening read on how good intentions really can pave the road to hell, but at least the author offers ideas on how to fix the problem. I highly suggest it for reading, but I will caution it’s a bit technical at spots. Also I can’t help but think of the parallels to conditions on some Canadian native reserves of chronic poverty and wonder if our well meaning programs here at home are also the cause of much suffering. Of course some of this book’s solutions won’t transfer to here, but perhaps we could start thinking to some solutions in a different way.
Posted by Canadian Dream on October 7, 2009
Well since taking on a second job starting in Nov. I’m facing the fact that my original savings goal to pay off the mortgage in about five years could be a bit faster now. Yet at the same time I’m not entirely comfortable about getting shoved into a higher tax bracket, so should I use some of the new cash to use up some of my unused RRSP contribution room to keep myself out of that tax bracket?
On the surface it does seem like a good idea, but there are some are issues. The first and more obvious one is perhaps I should save that unused contribution room until after the mortgage is paid off. After all I’m likely going to be making more money towards the end of my career so that contribution room could be used to save me potentially more tax later on. Or do you make the contribution and use the refund to further pay down the mortgage? That’s another classic option.
What is also complicating matters is I’m into reading the fine print on my mortgage agreement to determine if I can actually shove this much cash onto my mortgage in a given year. I have to confirm with my bank but I suspect I might be limited to about $25,000 in extra payments. If that is the case then the RRSP starts to become an attractive option once I max out my mortgage pre-payment options.
Sigh, just when things are going along nicely something has to come up and mess it all up again.
