Torn between passion and a high pay job opportunity

We all grow up with dreams of doing a particular job but circumstances determine otherwise.

Some of us are knocked off the grid because of insufficient grades while others fail to put up with the kind of pay associated with some jobs.

Passion and definitely pay are always on the invisible list at the back of everyone’s mind during a job search.

However, the real dynamics of the job market will always guide us especially when it comes to the paycheque.

In some cases you will be presented with a dilemma where you will be torn between passion and pay.

Passion does not pay bills but the paycheque does and most definitely you will have to make a choice between the two.

Handling passion and pay

But how do you navigate the waters if you find yourself entangled in such as position?

Daniel Robert Muyanja has been applying for jobs ever since he left school about a year ago and today he finds himself in a dilemma where he has two job offers but has got to choose between pay and passion.

“I first got a call from an organisation that had interviewed me a few weeks back. I was excited about the offer because it is what I have always been passionate about,” he says.

However, a few days later, Muyanja was presented with another offer from another organisation where he had filed an application.

This time with a relatively higher position and a better pay cheque.

“I have told people [about the job] and they seem to be excited for me. But I do not feel the craze. If I happen to take up the job it will be because of the packs that come with it and nothing else,” he says.

Muyanja holds a Masters in Education and he was recently offered an editing job in a publishing house and a director of studies job in a school.

However, whereas the latter pays much more, he is more interested in the editing job because he thinks it will present him more opportunities than the director of studies one.

Whereas Muyanja has been presented with two choices Hussain Mugarura, a graduate of Business Administration has none and is desperate for anything.

“I badly need a job. I have a number of bills including looking after my siblings,” he says but emphasises that whereas he can take on any job for now he would need one he is passionate about.

“Good performance is a result of the drive with which you do your job. It is difficult to have a drive for a job that you are not passionate about however much it pays you,” he says.

Pay and passion will always determine how a job is executed and the two give employees the drive.

However, many employees have had to choose pay over passion.

Juliet Nansubuga will settle for nothing but a well-paying job because she believes passion does not pay bills. “I work to earn money. So, I can tolerate an unpleasant job if it pays me well. I would take up a well-paying job over passion any day,” she adds.

Nansubuga’s argument is supported by Daniel Kahneman, a professor emeritus of psychology at Princeton, who wrote in the New York Times recently, saying: “It is not so much that money buys you happiness but that lack of money buys you misery”.

“Achieving the right balance between big money and job satisfaction depends on one’s values, priorities, family obligations and spending habits…” Kahneman wrote.

Catherine Amia, a career counsellor at Kawempe Youth Centre, believes that although choosing between passion and pay rarely happens to a number of people, passion without sufficient pay will always tempt people away.

“Whereas passion is a major motivator for good results in the work place, money is more motivating and you would be living in denial if you fail to pay attention to it,” she says.

Being passionate about a job, she says, will only hold if it has financial benefits because as people grow into their jobs life ceases to be about passion to meeting certain demands.

“A good measure of the two is always important to strike a balance. However, it is often dangerous for one’s career and job to only be about the money,” she says.