For Money or Not? A Perspective

“Life isn’t just about money. I work for experience and learning,”  

T, 23, urban millennial, “Ivy League” graduate, son/daughter (gender non-disclosed) of the parliament. Parents didn’t give him/her “fund,” but lavish housing facility, in the heart of the city center, 10 minutes away from his/her workplace isn’t called ‘funding’ no?

“I work for money. I need money. Passion don’t pay the bills,”

R, 23, urban millennial, “Ivy League” graduate also.

Yet some details are interesting: R’s father came from a rural area (in Indonesia case, picture those areas in the Eastern part of the country.) His/her father tortured himself to almost death, piling up debts in order to fund him/her to go to school. Sure, he/she got a scholarship for his/her brilliance. But it didn’t cover much of non-academic aspects. So, he/she graduated with cum laude. But now, his/her father has gone terribly ill, and they have to pay enormous debts. Now, the responsibility to financially support his/her four other siblings, also his/her parents went to him/her. 

At this point, can we really think money is not important?

I want to start with my own story.

My father works for the government, in the army. It is no secret for the whole nation, that it wasn’t exactly a gold-paying job. In extension, my father worked on a separate city to place I lived in, as a kid. Thus, I grew up having to prioritize which “kids’ fun” I should obtain, or not. My mom, God bless her soul, she worked as well to co-support our household financial, aside from being the primary breadwinner for me. She invested on tons of education support for me, since early days. 

In university days, things were better. I was awarded many chances to represent my faculty for international conferences. (That itself is already part of the chance I owed my mother: the long history of English education). Despite the fact that I was paid for that, the opportunity  was in reimbursement method. I imagined that had my parents not having the financial backup for the chances, I would’ve had to willingly let go. If I couldn’t be able to attend those opportunities, I can't picture myself become someone who I am today.

It took a toll on me until today. Without any disrespect to people who are more unfortunate than I do, I am very blessed that the only person I have to support financially is myself. Therefore, salary is important for me. To be fair, I’m not using it for lavish lifestyle. Still, obtaining books, attending extra conferences, purchasing study materials (not to mention those in English) are expensive, no? On the other hand, I have to invest for the future, for example in the stock market. 

At this point, perhaps questions started to be addressed to me, about what I am trying to say.

Over the course of time, countless debates have gone around. To work for money or for every other things, for example passion?

To be honest, I think there are no exact formula about which one is right, and which one isn’t.

First, people have different aims when they work. As I mentioned earlier, some people do work for financial support. Passion is important, of course. Numerous books, essays, journals, researches have pointed these out. However, not everybody has the same luxury of balancing both “passion” and “career.” 

Is this their mistake? Could be, could be not. There are cases where these people used to abandon chances to grow themselves, therefore they are “stuck” in the places they are then. In this case, maybe it is fair to say that these people are highly recommended to leave their jobs, and start pursuing what is right, beyond fears.

Nevertheless, there are cases where things aren’t as simple as that. For example, people who have less to none access to education, facility, inclusion. I think this is one of the most apparent issues to the society in Indonesia. To begin with, our geography is huge, in terms of sizes. We can both blaming and not the government for not trying their best to reach those people in seclusion. Still, I think pointing fingers don't bring much solutions.

To be fair, I spent most of my time in urban areas. I only occasionally travel to those frontier, outermost and least developed regions (often referred to as 3T: terdepan, terluar, tertinggal ) regions. I have to say that I was very lucky myself that I was admitted to the top 3 university of the country. I have the privilege to use English, having food and a roof above my head, can cover insurance, and the list might go on. 

In my university day, I learned that many people (mostly the privileged kids) were blabbering about: “Life isn’t just about money. It’s about passion, impact, and making difference”

Usually, I snickered. No, not because of the message.

Rather, it was because of the tone that was left behind: victimizing those who prioritize money, as if they’re committing sins. I believe if people never really encounter the lack of money in their life, for example to starve themselves to sleep so that they'll just eat tomorrow along with the breakfast, they wouldn’t understand the anxiety inside one’s self, about whether or not one can sufficiently cover expenses tomorrow. 

Recently,  Indonesia also encountered the case of  “Gaji 8 Juta, fresh graduate UI.” In my perspective, I don’t really think we should snicker of the person, without really knowing the whole case. What if the person is that capable? What if this person deserves to be paid that high (based on the working hour, responsibility, work-life balance, and all), but the company failed to reward this person so? What if this person is required to continuously attend extra lessons beside job, for example courses, seminars, classes because his/her job demands the-always-cutting-edge insight, but the company wasn't willing to fund this, nor giving the facility inside the company? 

Then, if we found the answer to most of the questions is "no," then we may as well start to see this person differently.

Albeit, I understand about the infamous “millennial mentality.” I won’t deny the fact that due to the seeming-less world we face today, many of millennial have lived a life without grit. Thinking life would be as easy as finding caption for Instagram post (disclaimer: this is not even easy.)

Therefore, all I want to say is that we should stop judging nor labeling people, especially if we don’t want to nurture them, nor listen to their case.

It’s okay to work for money. It’s okay to go after it, because many do need it. In the end, although life doesn’t need money, a lot of aspects aren’t free. 

Paradoxically, those who have all the money they can have know something: it was never just about money. The mind that controls it matter most. If you have all the money, yet you stop growing, what good the money do? In other words, money are just tools in life. How humans use it are the most important. If we put it as a priority, it will never be enough. 

Just putting money in life will bring to a point where we’re lying on the dead bed, regretting things one should had done, but it was too late.

To non-millennial, perhaps many of our attitude showed how “not-gritty-like-us-in-our-time." I understand this. Compared to the other generation, we have many bonuses: internet, hyper-connectivity, border less chances (although, well, not entirely, since many from non-urban didn’t). Yet the world we are facing today are very different.

For an example, I watched “The Abnormal Summit" episode 135", a Korean’s show by JTBC TV that showed many countries praised the economy in the past, as their golden age. Today the growth are none, jobs are gone. To think about it, of course growth were more significant by the time. Perhaps most people at the time compared economy or financial situations to the WWI or WWII era, times where people had minimum to none life aside war. When it ended, jobs suddenly appeared everywhere, all until today. Of course it rose to “golden era.” We all know, today’s achievement became only “standard” tomorrow. So here we are, the younger generations who face a comparison toward this generation.

On the other hand, many growths today are also happening in an “unseen” dimension. For example, digital economy. Measuring digital economy are very different with measuring agricultural economy (which is hypothetically saying, visible). Millennial are one of the greatest powerhouse for the digital economy. However, it took tech-savvy ability to see its growth, one that many previous generations didn’t master. I’m just going to take a very simple example: we can work everywhere, even in the coffee shop, just only by our laptop. This is an act which to many older generation is called “screwing around," the-not-gritty-like-my-time-attitude. Shortly, different eras take different treatment. But the grit, as the square one of growth, remains there.

Simply stating, the world is moving very fast and vast today. Many of it takes more money than it used to. Also, in other cases, people had many unspoken things about funding money for other aspects in their life. 

I shall close my writing by stating my belief: There is nothing wrong with working for money, as long as we understand, money is not everything.