PASSION vs MONEY : The Road Less Travelled

AUTHOR: CA Anurag Sharma | 21st April 2021 | Read Time: 4-6 mins

DELAYED GRATIFICATION—a concept which we may well be aware of, but seldom adopt in our lives…

Gratification means pleasure, & we all are pleasure seeking beings. Most of us–both in our personal & professional lives–have a habit of doing the easy part first & then go for the difficult task.

Pleasure comes first, and the pain later.

Delaying gratification essentially means “Scheduling the pain and pleasures of life in such a way so as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. IT IS THE ONLY DECENT WAY TO LIVE”

So, now the obvious question: Why is this important to us, especially for Young/Newly Qualified Professionals…??

Hi guys…this is Anurag Sharma…qualified CA, CFA charterholder, a working professional with 6 years of corporate experience working across MNCs, and have recently ventured into teaching (at SSEI)–a passion I’ve wished to pursue for quite some time now. Also–before I delve deeper into the topic…I’d like to thank you all for your insightful comments on my previous articles!

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So once a student qualifies (let’s say CA), the first decision which we all have to take is to whether go for:

• Practice or Job
• In job– which profile to choose

And let me be very honest here, our decision (in most of the cases) is driven by money rather than the profile or future prospect.

And this is where we have unconsciously chosen pleasure and automatically delay the pain….

Unfortunately, in India (and may be across the world), there is no direct link between work profile and money offered by an organization. This is mostly true– exceptions are always there, but they may far apart and few.

As you all must be aware– India is a service-oriented economy [~55%]– we have all these US and Europe based multinational companies setting up back-offices in India and making use of cheap & skilled labor force available in our country.

While these MNCs offer decent (or good) packages and growth opportunity, but what we are essentially doing in these organizations is mundane/routine tasks on day to day basis…exchange money for our time, but not the SKILLS.

To put it in raw language– we are selling our time for money.

And what happens after few years? You will find yourself trapped in this vicious circle where your salary would be too high compared to your friends probably, but the job satisfaction will be low (read negligible)

Even the skills acquired are not fungible/transferable to other work profiles.

In my experience, all these people working for MNC’s– drawing high annual packages [50, 60, 70 lacs or even more], with all the amenities & big titles against their names, supposedly ‘Successful’ as per the conventional definition—- are actually living a shallow life.

They can boast about their cool gadgets, the fancy car, the dream house…add to that the foreign trips—some probably funded with bank loans or credit cards….

But come to think of it….isn’t this a very non glamourous way to live? (pun intended!!)

Yes, I’m aware that taking the other route will have its own challenges…. where the profile may be good but not paying well.

See these things come up in our mind when we start comparing our lives with others…which technically should not be the case.

I am not trying to take sides and decide on your behalf what is right for you.

What I’m trying to do is just lay down the facts to make you aware, so you don’t fall for the so called perks (read traps):

• Big brands/organization
• High salary
• Mostly repetitive work

Rather try to do the difficult/hard thing first in our career and maybe delay the pleasure!

Try to take ‘The Road Less Travelled’! Seldom has anyone achieved anything spectacular in their lives by taking the usual route! Try follow that dream of yours….have the courage to not follow the herd and go for the traditional 9-5 job!!

The road less travelled may not be rewarding in the near term, but will definitely yield great results in future in every which way you can imagine. At the far end of the tunnel, you will not just have money, but also a purpose.

You wont just be working for that ‘salary credit’ notification at the end of every month, waiting to repay the EMI on time….you will be working to actually make an impact. The earlier you make these decisions in life, the better the outcome.

I am hoping that you all will not just think about it, but will also imbibe and practice ‘delayed gratification’—both in your personal and professional lives.

Thanks for Reading

Anurag Sharma

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