Let’s talk about real compensation. What do you live for? What constitutes the most important reward in your life? What do you seek that is most critical to maintain and enrich your existence?
It probably is not money. Pay received in exchange for your services as an employee is both a reward and a tool for further rewards. Money allows you to buy things and support a certain lifestyle. It can free you from some concerns and it can constrain you with others. Cash also functions as a scorecard, but that simply makes it a method rather than the objective itself. Pay is a means to an end. People don’t live for money. They live for other things: some can be purchased, others can be rented, and a few can only be earned other ways.
Louis L’Amour wrote: “All life is divided into two parts: anticipation and memory, and if we remember richly, we must have lived richly.”
As people strive to survive and prosper, to achieve and flourish, to grow and develop, they can lose track of what they are trying to accomplish. Take a moment to pause and consider things in context. If your current path does not serve your objective of what constitutes a “richly compensated” life, maybe it is time to change direction. Otherwise, you will end up right where you are heading.
What are you accumulating for your future memories?
E. James (Jim) Brennan is Senior Associate of ERI Economic Research Institute, the premier publisher of interactive pay and living-cost surveys. Semi-retired after over 40 years in HR corporate and consulting roles throughout the U.S. and Canada, he’s pretty much been there done that (articles, books, speeches, seminars, radio/TV, advisory posts, in-trial expert witness stuff, etc.) and will express his opinion on almost anything.
Image courtesy of drorzunz.com
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