HYU06B FEA Event9: Academic writing
Choosing a Career
Student’s Name: Junghwan Kim
Teacher: Helen Kong
Due Date: 08 March 2012
Word count: 926
HYU06B FEA
JungHwan Kim
Question: Many people believe that working conditions and having a job you enjoy is
more important than salary. Compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages
of two types of jobs, giving examples of their expected salaries, working conditions
and staff satisfaction
Steve jobs, the CEO of APPLE, once said “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living
someone else’s life.” Means life is very short and there is a time for everything therefore in certain
moment of life, people have to choose whether following the job that offers enjoyment and
satisfaction to the worker or following the job that comes up with high salary. Unfortunately, people
these days have been raised to connect happiness to wealth. People even use term ‘dream jobs’ to
describe a high salary career such as lawyers and doctors but it doesn’t mean that high salary career is
bad because people actually motivated by money however it has several disadvantages like less
enjoyment and decreasing level of satisfaction in work that eventually led people to suicide
themselves.
Great enjoyment comes up with great satisfy and satisfaction level can be altered by several
factors such as salary, social status and achievement but there is a priority. There is a common idea
that high salary is the most important thing among those three however researches break the social
convention. According to a study of job satisfaction in the United States by Tom W.Smith from
University of Chicago, the highest occupation that ranked was clergy at 87.2% and physical therapists
took second rank by 78.1%, unlike people’s expectation because clergy earn merely as much as
lawyers and social position of physical therapist is very low. Another study shows that sing a song
writer was the happiest workers that 91.2% of them satisfied with what they are doing but ironically,
lawyers ranked 268 at 46.7%, considerably low. The results indicate that a high salary does not always
come up with satisfaction and rather, people consider achievement is more important factor.
In common, people who get paid a lot also have a high social status. High salary jobs
sometimes can be very demanding and it is so stressful that people suicide because they cannot handle
the people’s expectation that came from their standing in the society and the stress from their work.
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There is a study shows that the occupation with the highest suicide rate is doctors such as physicians
and dentists. Also there is an example of social celebrities’ suicide. 4years ago, vice president of
SAMSUNG ELECTRONIC suicide because of large work load, depression and stress. People
wondered why someone like him suicide because the place he stand is a dream of most people. He
was an executive of large corporation, so called ‘flower of business people’, and his salary was
1bilion won so people think he should be the happiest man in the world however there is a test result
that 65 among 500 executives (13%) suffered from depression according to the Seoul National
University Hospital in 2010 and the subjects (executives) said “Being an executive seems finally free
from stress but it’s not totally true. Once you become an executive, you have a lot of things to do;
result competition, working on your tasks also managing your subordinates, all sorts’ seminars,
reports, etc”. They are under an endless pressure to achieve variety of goals people expect him to
make.
People feel happiness when they feel alive however the term happiness is very vague and
relative notion that every individual feel happiness in every different situations. Human is adaptive
animals not only the environment but also a feelings such as happiness, for example, poor people
showed a gratitude, happiness for little amount of money however rich showed minimal happiness
when it comes to money. There is an episode of a famous artist name Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin that
shows a life of man who lived with pure passion and real happiness.
Paul Gauguin is regarded one of the most prominent painters who seriously affect 20 th
century modern art world and has unique background. He was interested in art but he was a security
dealer and he never painted before until his age 27. He was always eager to draw a picture but he had
a family to support so he couldn’t just abandon the life he had that is secure and livable however
inside of his mind, his passion to art got bigger and bigger that he couldn’t stay still unless he draw.
He started his art life by collector but at the age of 34, the intense passion in his heart finally burst out.
He just left to Paris for his art and he abandoned everything in his life; his job, his family, his money,
he just took a little money to buy a canvas and paints. All people around him said he will end his life
in miserable and actually he didn’t earn a lot of money and die in starvation and poor health but he
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JungHwan Kim
said the moment when he draws is the happiest moment of his life and if he couldn’t draw, that would
drive him to madness. This episode said, happiness is very different with people but it is important to
human well-being.
Job is not only a way of earning money but it also occupies majority part of human life over
50% because people spend half a day in the work. Statistics of job satisfaction, suicide level and
episode of Paul Gauguin represented above indicates that high salary job doesn’t guarantee people
happy lives; it even costs one’s life. People should aware the amount of time they spend on work and
should not treat stress as light matter of life. Happiness is all matter as a result follow the enjoyment
of life is much more important than following money.
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