Comments on: Working for Love or Money

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:19:09 +0000

Great post. I see a parallel here between: 1- Reason and emotions, and
2- Working for money or passion/love of the work (i.e. productive fulfilling work done according to one’s own rational judgment.

With a philosophy of reason and rational self-interest, “[a person's] mind and his emotions are integrated” (from Ayn Rand Playboy interview March 1964). (1)
Reason guides him to the proper emotions.

In the same way, with a philosophy of reason and in a free, rational society, the most objectively productive and valuable work would be rewarded with the most money. Any legitimate productive achievement or virtuous behavior would be rewarded accordingly. Reason guides people to properly value other men’s work, ability (including the ability to think long range), and moral character (i.e. honesty, integrity, self-esteem, purposefulness).

With the proper philosophy, one’s reason and emotions align, and in the proper society, money (i.e. salary, payment) and passionate, fulfilling, productive work would align as well.

-Jason

1. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/emotions.html

By: tod

tod — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:59:42 +0000

“Too many people want to make up other peoples minds and never think to explore their own.”

Garret, that is an excellent point.

By: garret seinen

garret seinen — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:19:06 +0000

There’s an interesting book called “How to be Rich’ by J Paul Getty where he didn’t write about making money, just living life to the fullest. It might give you a good reference for that essay since Getty had a pretty good idea about the limitations of being a CEO. Discussed making up you own mind at some length – society’s biggest problem. Too many people want to make up other peoples minds and never think to explore their own.
Feel free to clip something off my site if it triggers an idea in need of expansion.

By: tod

tod — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:48:55 +0000

I would love to be Wayne Gretzky! I actually play hockey four or five days a week.

Once you have ethics down, it can be a challenge to figure out how to live your life. What career, what should I strive for, etc., can be truly hard to answer even for a dyed-in-the-wool Objectivist. I know more than a few people who think that if they aspire to be anything less than the CEO of a major corporation, they are being overcome by irrationality. I plan to think and write much more about those individual, psychological issues that don’t have a clear answer (unlike politics, for example).

Yeah, my quota was huge and the deadline looms… even if I don’t make it, I have a real appreciation of what it takes to put out good content on a regular basis. I don’t plan to let up, although I could never keep up the pace of one essay per day.

By: garret seinen

garret seinen — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:55:02 +0000

Interesting reading your blog – much the same outlook that I have.
I’ve often said, why spend so much time doing something you don’t like just to have money to do things you do like? Why not earn a little less doing what you do like and gain the time?
At the same note, to be truly successful, you need to be doing something that you’d do even if you don’t get paid. Think Wayne Gretzky.
But if one decides to get into a “passion” fields of endeavor, the sports, music, writing, acting and yes, flying, only the exceptional are well remunerated and usually by the less skilled people in those field who make so little money doing the same thing.
You might get a kick out of something I wrote some years ago on work, jobs and effort. It here, on my “under construction blog”, http://gseine.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/jobs-work-and-effort/
BTW, I found my way over here from OActivists and cheers, I be checking back to see if you fulfill the, too ambitious for me, month’s quota.