Originally Posted by
Frank W. Abagnale
I would be extremely careful with that statement.
Depending on where you might get an alternative job, your home country for example, factor in, if applicable:
- A government pension system with monthly payouts during retirement (priceless in times of indefinite low interest rates)
- A company pension system with monthly payouts during retirement (priceless in times of indefinite low interest rates)
- Better, cheaper and/or even free healthcare system, to which you might have access to until you die (the day you leave Cathay you and your family will lose healthcare insurance)
- Better, cheaper and/or even free education system (500.000+ HK$ debenture per child in HK)
- Affordability of property (rent and purchase) and the associated higher quality of life for yourself, your wife and kids, living in a bigger place and in a much healthier environment compared to HK
- Living with wife and kids in a healthy environment in unpolluted air (and avoiding the associated medical cost of living in polluted air like in HK eventually)
- Cheaper, better and healthier food
- Cheaper commuting cost to see friends and relatives (2 ID90 tickets Business Class for a return trip from HK to the UK cost 6000 HK$ for one person)
- Avoiding the risk of living in an unstable city (protests, uncertain outcome) and the associated risk of starting somewhere else from scratch at the lowest pay scale worst case
- Probably a few more reasons.
Yup....as I've said raw numbers are irrelevant. The cost of living in San Francisco is quite a bit different than that of Waldo, FL. What IS relevant is the COL where you are compared to what you are paid. This can be a trap and can have some dig themselves into a hole of debt from which it's really tough to climb out--with all the lifes issues of not being able to get by for where you are and the stress (and family stress) that goes with this situation. Some people get around this by commuting--which is great--but you then have to look at the cost of the commute and the collateral time lost. With time lost being the big thing. Unlike many other carriers, you are in a VERY hostile environment to make a commute work in any way. There are ways around this.
The bottom line comes down to are you doing what you like, do you have ENOUGH to live a decent life, and are you enjoying your life where you are. I've found that as long as one has 'enough' (which can be surprisingly little) but is happy in what one is doing that's the key. Probably the happiest times of my life were when I made less than I do now, had less 'stuff', but really enjoyed what I was doing and felt a part of it. I think this is the 'new guy' trap; despite all the sage warnings of what's going on there's a stream of wishful thinkers seeing conditions not for what they are but for what they wish them to be. So they wind up rationalizing everything and find themselves in a job that isn't that hard but is boring and routine watching air go by with lots of angst towards the future making less than they need to get by. And piss away a large fraction of their life entrapped in a situation of their own making. Not knowing how to get out. And waking up with nothing to show for a significant fraction of their life. Having wasted a great deal of life.
POS 18 is predicated on LESS THAN ENOUGH. Wishful thinking doesn't change this. Nor is there any indication that one will ever have ENOUGH for this environment.
Nor is it a particularly 'happy' place. With more than enough fear and division to last ten lifetimes.
Anyway, all of this has been published before. Some folks gotta stick their hand in the boiling water to figure out it's hot.