An interview at Ross

you could always stake a claim and pan for gold :d

 

Romanticizing poverty and homelessness is almost always done by those who haven't experienced it. Maybe that isn't the case for you guys - but if you take the poorest 1 percent of the population and the richest 1 percent, I'll take any odds that the rich is on the whole happier.

But chasing money for money's sake isn't a satisfying way to live either. And while some things that I think genuinely make people happy don't require money (relationships, family, etc), lots of life-improving things do. The passions that drive my life - back-country skiing, fishing, mountain biking, hiking, traveling, eating well, my dog, rec hockey, exploring backroads, etc all cost at least some amount of money.

There is a middle ground - not all jobs are soul-sucking cubicle sentences. I really like my summer job of fighting forest fires. It has tons of awesome aspects to it - falling big trees, helicopter rides, big exciting fires, travelling, being in the bush, great people. It also has tons of shitty aspects, but on the whole I love it.

I also love school - so I went to university to be a teacher. I have 3 months left and I'll be certified to teach in this province. So far I have loved my 2 practicums and am chomping at the bit to do my next one.

What jobs people will like is a highly personal decision. But most of the jobs people think of as spiritually/mentally/whatever satisfying take some level of education.

Teaching/policing/firefighting/carpentry/forestry/whatever. Obviously, there are exceptions that take less or no education... But they are a lot harder to get into.

That was really rambly. I guess what I am trying to say is don't waste your life doing retail/fast food/whatever when there are better paying and better living jobs out there for you, guaranteed. They just take a little bit more work to find.

If you really aren't sure, go fight forest fires or treeplant. You'll make a shit ton of cash pretty quick and have all winter to travel/do whatever.

 

Post script to that post:

Anybody sick of their job should try working in the bush. It is good to try something new.

 

I don't think this is necessarily true. I have a friend that does volunteer work in Peru every year and has been since he was 13. He says the one thing thats always stuck with him the most from the experience is the fact that the people he works with have absolutely nothing in the way of material possessions but they're so much happier and grateful than most of the comparatively wealthy americans he knows.

Living a comfortable life certainly lends a certain freedom to pursue happiness, but I think people living in poverty sometimes have the ability to appreciate the smaller things in life more so than people who are surrounded by material possessions.

 

Not that I think that is invalid, but I think there is a distinct difference between being the poorest member of a society, and being an average member of a poor society (even if levels of deprivation were comparable).

A lot of the "hardness" comes from being stigmatized. Not that I think your point is wrong, only that your experiences with the homeless may be different than mine. Especially considering a full 50 percent of homeless in this area suffer from varying degrees of mental illness (significantly higher if you include addiction). They aren't a particularly happy bunch.

 

thats true, i was referring more to entire societies living in poverty. I wasn't considering the homeless and disenfranchised living in wealthy nations. good point.

 

first off, congrats and good luck getting the job.. i hope you do. second, don't let it make you sad. i'll bet that most of us have had to downsize over the past few years. i used to make $16 an hour too, and it was a chimp job where i hardly had to lift a finger. these days i'm busting my ass for $10 at 2 part time jobs with hours that would make most people recoil in horror (9pm-6am and 4am-1pm) but if i learned one thing over the past year and a half of being unemployed, it's that just about any job is better than no job (possibly the only exception i can think of is Mcdonalds or Starbucks). Am i answering my life's call and doing what i want to make of a career? Of course not, but i enjoy my jobs and am grateful as hell to finally be employed. At least i know my overnight pet care job is at least a foot in the door to the career i want even though i'm on the bottom rung right now. So don't let it get ya, be proud you are making the effort. And good luck again!

 

I definitely had to bust my ass at my last job, but it was a good kind of ass busting
And yeah, I would MUCH rather work at Ross than at fast food!

Normally I'm not stressed about money, but my boyfriend and I did just buy some land and I would like to have a house on that land... and the aforementioned student loans weigh on my mind.

 

I remember reading a study about how having enough money for the necessities makes people generally happier, but happiness does not increase when there is money beyond what is needed.

I feel that this is true. As long as I have enough money for food and shelter I am happy and I don't think that having more money to buy useless possessions would make me any happier.

 

That's the fullfillment curve. Once you have everything, nothing "wows" you anymore. It takes more to please you, and you end up miserable.

I've read about that, too.



I have a friend like that. She changes her hair every few weeks, gets extensions, has them removed, dyes it a different colour...
Gets her fake nails done, posts TONS of pictures of herself on the internet partying, just bought a Cadillac she can't afford...wtf

She wants so hard for us all to be jealous of her, but I think she is the saddest person I know.

 

I've seen this as well. We're so conditioned in school to think that the people living in those countries must be so miserable without cell phones, mp3 players, fast food, lots of money, etc. but they're not. We're shown images of little kids over there crying while their faces are covered in flies.

While it's true there are places like that, what we don't see are the people who smile and enjoy playing soccer or are just happy and grateful in general to have the small means that they do. We're not shown those images because we might question the nature of our own society.

Things like boredom, anxiety, restlessness weren't big issues 150 years ago. The industrial revolution and technology has made it so that mostly everything is done for us now. What does that leave us to do? It leaves us with too much spare time to worry about pointless shit, too much time to sit around, hence the drastic increase in obesity over the last 100 years. Funny, you never see an obese poor African child.

People have too much spare time, too much money, and we're all dressed up with no where to go. This leads us to be unfulfilled. Rather than living simple, financially humble lives, doing work that is rewarding to ourselves, we work shitty jobs earning for someone else, then go out and spend money on stupid shit because we're unhappy that we're not doing what it is we want to do in life. Not everyone of course is unhappy, but it's pretty obvious that the majority is.

The happiest people I've ever met were artists; painters, sculptures, jewelry makers, clothing makers, drawers, etc. They're also often the poorest people I've ever met, but you wouldn't know it. They usually have such wonderful demeanors because they're genuinely happy in life. Doing what they want, earning for themselves, even if they're just getting by. If you do what you love you never work a day in your life.

What we don't see about other poorer countries is that they can be happy without money and all the other shit that defines 21st century North America. Even as recent as the 1960's when Cubans started leaving Cuba to go to the US. All we've ever heard about is how poor Cuba is and how crummy life must be there. It's a communist society, so we're taught to believe they have it worse than we do. The reality is that the ones who stayed are pretty damn happy. They don't have a lot of money, but they have benefits and a system that benefits everyone. What's really more important in life, personal wealth and happiness, or the personal happiness of society in general? I'd rather live in a happy, though humble society.

In the past 8 years I've know many people whose parents had a lot of money and these people usually had everything they want. They were always selfish, miserable shits and some were cleptomaniacs because they had no value for things because of their upbringing.

Personal comfort can be attained with money. Stability is a better term. But happiness comes from doing what one wants to be doing in life. I've always been poor and financially unstable, but I've always gotten to do what it is that I want, and I've been happy because of it.

People need to recondition themselves to really understand what happiness is. Why is it one can be so unhappy when they have little money or live in a crummy apartment? Because they're taught to think that they are poor and therefore must be miserable because they don't have the "good things" in life. We're not taught that we'll be happy when we do what we want to do in life. We're taught that there is a right and a wrong way, the wrong way will have you sleeping at the mission or on the street, the right way will have you sleeping in a big house with 2 cars parked outside and 2.5 children sleeping down the hall while your stocks build in your bank account over night.

 

It is only one job. Most of your life will be about something else.

 

nobody liked my gold panning idea?

 

I am a pretty happy person, aside from teh occasional depression from my pain. I can not say I live off very much at all. But we have everything we need right now. Not a lot over that, for extras. But for me my life doesnt depend on the extras. We have a lot of fun, doing practically nothing.
I have to agree, my mom goes to africa every year and the people she meets literally have nothing, and they are the most happy people you will ever meet. Yes there are many that are sick and sad. but for the most part , if they have food, and shelter, sometimes even just a blanket on the floor, they are so freakin happy!!
I think of them whenever I get super down on my life. bc honestly I have way more than they could ever imagine. and things do not make you happy. things can not make things better. You have to first enjoy life just period. and then if things come to you, like possessions they do. But if they dont, YOu are nto devastated or upset.
less is more. I mean, yes I wouldnt mind having more money to travel and such. But every time, we have wanted to go somewhere, we managed to slink our expenses down, and go. and we may not go far. but it is just fine with me. The thing we really like to do is camping. very simple and very cheap.

Life is so much more than what you own. We are moving into an rv, in march, or february. adn Iam so excited to have to get rid of stuff, and just live off only a few extras, and just things we need. I seem to realize, the less I have, the more happy I am.

 

I just don't think it would pan out.

 

I cant remember if it was this forum but the panning joke has a history somewheres :leaving:

 

It's not really a joke because I did buy the property.

 

get to work at it then

did you buy the land?..or just the mineral rights?

 

lot of mineral rights land been bought, and then totally taken over,, read fine print lololol

 

What is your problem? Mr negativity...

Must we all go into this again?