So you're painting the first guy as less successful than the second? To me that doesn't follow at all - you haven't given us the information that would let us deduce that from what you say. The first guy may be much happier and more fulfilled than the second, for all we know.
I'm certainly not the only one here who's stepped off a ladder leading to riches in order to step onto a place that seemed likely to offer me greater satisfaction. I'll never be rich, but I'm confident I've made the right choice. In fact, come to think of it, both my DH and I have made choices not to take/stay in a job that would have enabled us to have the kind of life where only one of us works. Even within it, we've chosen not to be maximally successful, in order to maintain work/life balance - DH's life-threatening illness a few years ago marvellously focused our minds on what's important.
If other things could be equal, I could wish I earned more money; I wish I could be completely free of cost considerations in thinking about my DS's education, for example. Other things can't be equal, however, and I don't see another career choice I could have made that would have been better. A higher LOG wouldn't have opened more options to me, either [ETA neither would anything I or my parents could have done differently, unless it had left me interested in career choices that, as it is, don't appeal]; all the choices I was ever interested in have been open to me. I suppose a higher LOG might enable me to accomplish more in the same amount of time, but tbh, it's not my LOG that's the limiting factor anyway; that's my sticktoitiveness, confidence, ability to persist with hard problems without sliding off and finding myself reading websites instead ;-)
So no prizes for guessing what I think's important to give our children to ensure their success:
- a clear sense of self: feeling empowered to make choices that will satisfy them, whether or not it's what someone else thinks they should do;
- familiarity with the process of trying, failing, trying some more, succeeding, so that that process feels normal.
Interesting questions, thanks for asking them!
Last edited by ColinsMum; 08/15/11 12:02 PM.
