For a long time my ambition when I grow was to be a lawyer. I remember the nights I would lie in bed and imagine myself in court arguing court cases in my head. I remember one morning during recess, Marcus, Shaun, and myself were walking down the corridor to recess, and we were discussing what we were going to be when we grew up, Shaun was going to be something into programming or computers, Marcus was going to be a businessman I think, and I was going to be a lawyer. We even suggested working together to create our own business.

Now, five years later, Shaun is in army, Marcus is on the way to becoming an accountant, and I am beginning my journey to becoming a teacher. Have we failed?

Today I was walking home from the library with Marcus, and I told him I wanted to become a teacher, and he was started talking about how research was fun, and when I corrected him, and said I wanted to be a college teacher, and not a university teacher, his first response was where's the money in that? Since when did the future mean money? When we were young, we harboured those ambitious thoughts of being a police officer, of being an air force pilot not for the money, but for the scope the job entailed that drew our interest. Today, when our interest doesn't earn the money, it doesn't seem that worthwhile.

I learnt a concept in management, human resources. One of the aim of human resource managers is to motivate it's workforce, thus creating job satisfaction. There are several ways to achieve this, one of which is through financial incentives. Another way is to motivate the employee so that they find their job meaningful, and rewarding. Of course the former is easier than the latter, but ironically, it's the latter that's more expensive than the former. Can you put a price on the rewarding feeling you get in your job? And that's what your salary tries to achieve.

So knowing this, people start to think that the higher the pay, the more meaningful the job. I wish I can expand on this point here, but reading too much on a blog entry is just dull. Marcus appreciates the art of numbers, and cash, Shaun appreciates the way computers function, I appreciate the way people connect, and react to different responses. What do you appreciate?