Being the 90s Part 5: Company Interest Or Personal Interest First? Is Passion Driven Work Possible?

@enjiewliew just shared with me on these infographics of the 90s working class traits that relate to me. Agree in some of the points which I had been experiencing since the start of working life. I am always keen to start my own startup at some point, but I wish to gain some market experience before doing so. In the meantime, I am also consistently gathering resources for the next leap which I am looking forward to the most. While working at my goal and getting more and more clarity at what I am going to do for the society, it is good to learn more about us especially my own generation, the 90s. it is important as this is the generation that will soon be taking over the world and becoming leaders in the next decades.

This is the continuation of the first post I posted today, the second post, the third post and forth post. Now, the fifth one is about whether or not putting company interest in front than our own personal interest. Let's look into it.

When we talk about passion vs financial gain, we used to mix the both components as the same category to discuss about. In my opinion, both of them should be separated and handled differently as both has their own role and importance to play in our life. Passion itself is the long driver for our life, it resembles our motivation to keep doing what we love and enjoy the process. Whether or not we gain financially, it is not that important. The most important of having passion in what we do is the life satisfaction and happiness we gained which are both intangible, but we can feel the impact. Repeating doing things that we do not have passion on or doing things that will not lead us to where our passion is will going to break our spirit significantly to lead a happy lifestyle. For me, having a happy life is our right but no one will spoon feed us with the happy life we want but we need to work and build around it. That is where passion comes in as a critical part of our life. Like me, I actually enjoyed art and music which I could indulge myself in the process of making arts or playing music for hours without even thinking of other things (have to make sure my gadgets are away from me). Such focus is sort of a meditation for me to clear my mind and have a better focus later on. However, I have been slacking from doing so frequently and slowly picking up this habit back.

On the other hand, financial gain is a way to sustain our life, as in a lifestyle of necessity and desired. We can sell products and earn through profits or sell our time to service for others in order to earn through remuneration. I could say I am currently working while building up my resources to pursue my passion which is to work between art and lifestyle, more on making our life colorful and fills/sparks with joy (oops, Marie Kondo). I have been fascinated with how to make a space nicer and enjoyed the process of doing so. However, I could yet to find ways to earn from doing so. The nearest professional that do this is interior design rather than being a project architect that handles documentation rather than design. Looking at the service industry itself, I will need a library of decorative components especially the taste and price which could allow me to play along with the components. Having to customize and redesign from scratch is not my preferred way to earn my first bucket of gold. Anyway, that is really up to me on how I want to get started and try out how to sell.

At this age, I am working more on the financial gain part rather than my passion part. It is a plus if I can earn from my passion and achieve my desired lifestyle as well. Well, that really depends on how I could strategize and balance between all these components. As what had been mentioned in the infographic, it mentions that the 90s are more focused on financial gain than passion. If a company sell passion to them, they will not take it. For me, it is not entirely right. What if you are very passionate with programming and you are offered full time job in Google, Airbnb, Tencent, Alibaba or any other renowned tech companies. Their benefits are great, salary offer is surely higher than the others but of course, the stress is there with such great package given. However, if this is your passion and you wanted to achieve something like creating an app that could again change the world, well getting paid to do what we love is nothing but great!

Again, patience is a virtue like how GaryVee had put it. As long as we know we are going to a direction that we are firm with, there is nothing wrong to be eating “shit” for a few months or years and having the good life after that. Imagine I have the lifetime of 100 years old which is totally possible for the 90s, I would still have 60 years ahead of me if I achieve the dream, I had at 40! At that time, I will be dreaming bigger to achieve more as it is something very addictive to keep on trying and achieve something interesting rather than staying put and doing the same thing again and again. Nonetheless, that is my personal take for my own life and there is a cost that I needed to pay which is a need to adapt new things and learn about it at a fast pace. This will allow me to thrive in such passion driven life and I am positive that I am moving towards that direction.

Now back to the infographic where it says that putting our own interest first then the company. Yes and no. Yes, we should when we are in the role of an employee of the company which we need to discard our personal interest and opt for the best option for the company. That is why sharing the same vision while working in the same team or company is essential whereby everyone has their own personal interest but need a mutual goal to achieve and get the big buck. No, we should put our own interest first when it matters to our physical and mental health. Our body is our very most precious asset which we usually neglected. If we find ourselves suffering from any sickness, it is best that we put aside company interest and get some rest. Well, other than that like monetary gains, if we do not break the contractual obligation we had with the company, I do not mind doing some side hustles. For me, it is more about the reputation that I built from scratch rather than just the financial gain which I believe I could earn big in the next ten years.

So, what is your opinion between your own interest and company interest? How do you balance between your passion and the necessary work that you need to do to pay bills?

Images credit to Nomazon