are visitors of Salary.sg mostly affluent people?

Above experiences shared are real enough scenarios. I personally never thought of stupid things like that when I was young, but do have some friends who chose low paying jobs because they like what they are doing and claim “there is more to life than money”

Some got out after a few years due to monetary pressure while a few still hanging on. But one thing I notice is that they are actually adult dependents. Although they claim to give token sum to parents monthly, their parents have been providing so much indirect help to support their lifestyle that realistically they would have been dead if their parents pull out life support.

These people often take parent support like room & board, food, use of car, free childcare, house down payment, for granted and proudly claim to me how they transcend beyond money and one got the cheek to say pity me for my rat race life. I challenge he try to live for 6 months without any parent support then come back & tell me how it goes. Last I heard he still on paternal welfare.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

"Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle." quoted from Steve Jobs.

So does passion lead to money, or money leads to passion?

I vote for the latter.

Steve Jobs was correct because his passion turned him on a uphill ride. He has the rights to give the inspiring speech and did the right thing to ask everyone to follow him in the pursuant for passion, which will bring better years. He was correct because... he succeeded.

It's the same whenever I watched the Taiwan version of Amercian Idol. Cannot remember the name but in spite of every participant's 'dreams and passions', there could only be one winner. And the rest of them left the stage with tears and some even went on to push the blame on others. But the failures failed to see that there's only one winner on stage.

While the route taken by Steve Jobs may not be lonely, as there could be many other winners in technology pioneering, we have to take note that it's always the winners making stage claims. Kudos to Steve Jobs for his contribution, but his claims to passions ought to be taken objectively, and well thought.

I'll just sum up with this: Always count the costs if one wants to pursue passion and not career in Singapore. Take note, it's SINGAPORE.

When young, I always wanted to be a Scientific Dimensional Researcher, or anything to do with astronomy, but Singapore just didn't have the market and my grades also didn't make it. I didn't continue my passion though.

I agree with my mum all these years. She says: make money first, do your passion on the side, and if (not when) you make enough money, then start to think more about your passion.

Pragmatic.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Steve Jobs was correct because his passion turned him on a uphill ride. He has the rights to give the inspiring speech and did the right thing to ask everyone to follow him in the pursuant for passion, which will bring better years. He was correct because... he succeeded.

It's the same whenever I watched the Taiwan version of Amercian Idol. Cannot remember the name but in spite of every participant's 'dreams and passions', there could only be one winner. And the rest of them left the stage with tears and some even went on to push the blame on others. But the failures failed to see that there's only one winner on stage.

While the route taken by Steve Jobs may not be lonely, as there could be many other winners in technology pioneering, we have to take note that it's always the winners making stage claims. Kudos to Steve Jobs for his contribution, but his claims to passions ought to be taken objectively, and well thought.

I'll just sum up with this: Always count the costs if one wants to pursue passion and not career in Singapore. Take note, it's SINGAPORE.

When young, I always wanted to be a Scientific Dimensional Researcher, or anything to do with astronomy, but Singapore just didn't have the market and my grades also didn't make it. I didn't continue my passion though.

Agree 101%, everyone goes all excited over the 1% success stories and forget the remaining 99% failures who lives are screwed as a result of this follow dream & impractical thinking.

Newspaper always got articles about some hero who gave up his normal job and start some successful business he like, but nobody bother to write about the loser who lost everything, business fail, bankrupt and hurting.

[Hermit]

Most of life is a show.

Originally Posted by fake7

Agree 101%, everyone goes all excited over the 1% success stories and forget the remaining 99% failures who lives are screwed as a result of this follow dream & impractical thinking.

Newspaper always got articles about some hero who gave up his normal job and start some successful business he like, but nobody bother to write about the loser who lost everything, business fail, bankrupt and hurting.

Yeah, the papers should write more on failures. Maybe someone should start a f**kedcompany website for singapore.

It is human culture, and very Asian culture.

Who will be proud to post about their failures? Everyone also have abit of ego (some more than others) Everyone also want to feel good about themselves.

Hence, if you look at the salary section, all the posts (assuming they are true) are probably the top 10%.

Nothing wrong with it. This is good data. It is how you choose to digest the data. I see alot of people getting demoralised. Some get angry and flame those who post high salaries. Or, get angry/jealous and post ficticiously high salary themselves.

I see it as good data source.. take some data points, discard some data points. More info is always good

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Yeah, the papers should write more on failures. Maybe someone should start a f**kedcompany website for singapore.

[Ryan002]

This is bankerville, you know that right? It's mostly home to people who have sacrificed so much of their personal life that now, the only thing they can do is compare income. Even if they're not bankers (I'm not), most of us have sacrificed any actual talent or love of the job for the pursuit of cash.

Which isn't a bad thing, it's just the way some of us choose to define ourselves.

You're not a loser. You probably define yourself in other ways. Maybe you like having more free time. Maybe you'd rather be an Apple than a Microsoft. If you make less, odds are you don't spend every waking hour reading finance blogs and thinking up ways to make money. And you know...making money is like basketball or tennis. You keep doing it, you do it everyday, and sooner or later you'll get better at it.

The high earners here aren't more talented than you. They're better than you at making money because they obsesses about it every day. Anything that you obsess over every day, you will eventually become good at. That's all. So you're not a loser; you just have different interests and priorities.

Originally Posted by Ryan002

This is bankerville, you know that right? It's mostly home to people who have sacrificed so much of their personal life that now, the only thing they can do is compare income. Even if they're not bankers (I'm not), most of us have sacrificed any actual talent or love of the job for the pursuit of cash.

Which isn't a bad thing, it's just the way some of us choose to define ourselves.

You're not a loser. You probably define yourself in other ways. Maybe you like having more free time. Maybe you'd rather be an Apple than a Microsoft. If you make less, odds are you don't spend every waking hour reading finance blogs and thinking up ways to make money. And you know...making money is like basketball or tennis. You keep doing it, you do it everyday, and sooner or later you'll get better at it.

The high earners here aren't more talented than you. They're better than you at making money because they obsesses about it every day. Anything that you obsess over every day, you will eventually become good at. That's all. So you're not a loser; you just have different interests and priorities.

Good point. It's also the same message in Napoleon Hill's famous book Think and Grow Rich.

If you wanna be rich, the best way is to be obsessed with making money, not just reading and attending (useless) seminars, but actually going out and sell goods and services. The more you try, the better you get, and the more you make. Luck will follow.

Originally Posted by Ryan002

The high earners here aren't more talented than you. They're better than you at making money because they obsesses about it every day. Anything that you obsess over every day, you will eventually become good at. That's all. So you're not a loser; you just have different interests and priorities.

Not really true for all cases. Sometimes one has to accpet that we are not equal, some people are really smarter while others dumber when it comes to work. Even if 2 persons have same priorities on money and leisure & put in exact same effort at work, there will still be big differences in money because of inert differenece in capability.