This is one of those topics that I’ve been thinking about to the point that all my thoughts are garbled.
David Brooks wrote this column last week, writing about Sandra Bullock, who won an Academy Award and very soon after found out that her husband Jesse James was cheating on her. The question, as Brooks poses it, is this:
“Would you exchange a tremendous professional triumph for a severe personal blow?”
In other words, would you trade having your S.O. cheat on you in exchange for a huge professional accomplishment? The question is quite different from the one that the movie “Indecent Proposal” brought up about letting a guy sleep with your wife for a liquid mil–in Brooks’s hypothetical, you actually accomplish something rather than just cashing a check.
Brooks starts out with this:
…if you had to take more than three seconds to think about this question, you are absolutely crazy. Marital happiness is far more important than anything else in determining personal well-being. If you have a successful marriage, it doesn’t matter how many professional setbacks you endure, you will be reasonably happy. If you have an unsuccessful marriage, it doesn’t matter how many career triumphs you record, you will remain significantly unfulfilled.
…and he continues with the basic thesis that money is overrated as a determinant of happiness. You all may find the comments on the article interesting too. One guy actually disagrees with Brooks 100%, and his argument is compelling, though cold:
didn’t take longer than 3 seconds to think about this question. Of course I would take the professional success. I would “own” the professional success forever. I would never own nor control my spouse, nor would I harbor such a wish.
The assumptions in this column are out of whack. Marriage in this day and age–as opposed to some supposed prior Golden Age–doesn’t really work very well for most people over time. And at the exact time when professional success, the opportunities to create professional success, may be more elusive than heretofore, its value must surely rise.
In much less dramatic and unpublicized fashion than in the case of Ms. Bullock, my own marriage did founder at the exact time my professional career took off. That career was a great solace in getting through the legal foolishness that attended the formal breakup. And afterward it provided, despite the financial losses I incurred in the property settlement, the means to recover and then to prosper. Your career is far more likely to stand by you than is your spouse.
I personally agree with Brooks–for me, personally I’d take the marriage and family– but at the same time, I think of that question from back last year in 2009: what is a life without “spending” talent (1 ,2, and 3)and becoming recognized for a talent? I think that’s what keeps Donald Trump going (although I wouldn’t want to be him).
Related posts:
Pingback: Money or Love? « big WOWO | zixri.com
I choose love. However… now, if I were an easily love-struck kind of person, it may seem foolish to others to see me choose love over possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to succeed professionally.
On the other hand, I am not and I know that professional opportunities can come around again, perhaps in a different form and on a different scale (i.e. Pulitzer Award winning potential vs. a small town newspaper editor position), but a loving and compatible partner (who cooks, by the way) is hard to come by and THAT may never happen again.
I guess the choice is ironic since I am a cynic when it comes to the notion of “love” and that is exactly why I chose love over money.
does it have to be an either-or condition? why not look at it as a finding a balance between one’s professional and personal life? money is important in that one has to pay the rent and put food on the table and provide for a family. but when it comes down to it, family is always over the job. Family comes first.
All the professional accolades and monetary rewards won’t make up for a personal life that is empty and lacking in love, friendships, and meaning.
Agree with Mojo.
Success, wealth, prosperity, fame, are all relative concepts. You only feel successful until you meet a group of people more successful than yourself. You only feel like a millionaire until you meet a billionaire. You only feel famous until you’re onstage with someone who is more famous. it’s all relative.
But wait, you say, I would be satisfied just being a millionaire! But if that were really true, then why can’t you be satisfied with what you have right now?
Love, on the other hand, is unquantifiable. When you’re truly in love, you aren’t looking to double and then triple the amount love you have—there’s no love balance sheet. You’re not looking at some other person and saying, “Wow, that guy has 50 times more love than I do.” If you’re truly in love, then you have as much love as you can, and there is no measure beyond that.
@King,
funny you bring up relativity. I was sort of dozing in front of the TV this evening watching Bloomberg TV. It was a discussion with author and one time Wall Street trader Michael Lewis (“Liar’s Poker”, “The Big short”). He mentioned something about how he realized that once you made your money, you should move on to doing something different with your life–do something you really want to do. Essentially, that’s what he did. IIIRC, he said that too many of these Wall Street guys and gals keep at it, this mindless pursuit, when they should really just leave and do something else.
I took from it, how much more money, after you’ve already made/earned more than enough for financial security for the rest of your life, do you need to keep making? how does the incremental wealth further enrich your life? it doesn’t.
You guys are all smoking some serious stuff. And I keep saying I want some of whatever it is you’re smoking or snorting through your rotting nostrils.
There is no such thing as true love except for in the minds of hippies and socialists. And even then there’re arguments to be made. So given that, it’s much easier to find love with money (everything else being equal) than it is to find/make money on love (and I’m not talking about passion for talent)….that if really does exist will be either temporary or will be a very trying love story of caution.
Yes, I’m a cynical bastard…but I withhold the right to take back or reframe anything I’ve typed after midnight.
Why settle for either or? I take both.
And how much money is enough. Like anything one must strike a balance. I may think I am really in love with some guy, but if he is a bum, why should I stick around? On the other hand, there may be a guy who isn’t as good looking, but he is stable, faithful and has a decent job, shares the same goals as I do? Why not go for the guy who may not be the most passionate, but is decent and respectful?