I was talking to a person today that was saying how she prefers doing a certain job over a volunteer position as for the job she actually gets paid for it. I guess it’s true too as for many people in many cases if they make a lot of money doings something they generally enjoy it more as I guess everyone feels that it is worth it while being a good accomplishment.
While I think the ideal answer would be that doing what you love is the way to go, you can’t argue that people have to make a living too. Hence, people usually opt to do the things in life that bring in the most money. I always find the best way to try and balance this is to do what brings in the money and at the same time you can try and use some of the money towards building whatever it is you are passionate about where it is self sustainable.
So for example, if you like donating food to charity to help the less fortunate it wouldn’t just be taking the money you earn, buy some canned food and donate them. Instead, you would try and use the money to say build a donation box machine of some sort where it is placed in strategic locations such as where there are wealthier people. Then, the hope is your donation box will continually generate money and then you can use that to buy the can food to donate. Hence, you don’t really need to sacrifice one or the other really as you are trying to leverage your time and money better.
Of course this type of approach will take more thought and energy in the beginning, but in the end it would be worth it I’d say. Just because you volunteer to do things doesn’t mean you have to kill yourself financially too.