Oh man, watching bank commercials from before the financial crisis is kinda painful/funny. Talk about schadenfreude.

WaMu
History
Founded: 1889 - Seattle, Washington
De-mutualized: 1983
Sale and effective dissolution: 2009
Major Acquisitions:
10/2005 - Providian (subprime credit card provider): $6.5 bn.
2002 - Homeside Lending, Inc., Florida - WaMu covered really covered all of the housing boom regions.
2001 - Fleet Mortgage Corp.
2001 - PNC Mortage
2001 - Bank United Corp. of Texas - broad retail financial services, including mortgage origination.
2000 - Alta Residential Mortgage Trust - California
etc. source: [WaMu Wikipedia Page]

Hilarious ads (in retrospect)

What if money was no object?

Just saw this thought provoking video. The video is above. For those of you who don't want to watch, I'll summarize.

Video Recap:
Why spend your life doing things you don't want to do, so you can continue doing what you don't want to do? I would venture that the primary purpose of working for most people is to sustain his or her life. But if you don't like your life, what is the purpose of sustaining it?

Put another way, what is the point of doing something you don't like if the end result is more of what you don't like? Since going to work makes up a good 75% of a persons waking life, you are really just working so that you can work more in the future.

It is better to not worry about money and do what you love. If you work long enough at what you love, you will eventually become an expert. Experts get the money. So, live poor to do what you love while you're young, reap the profits of your expertise later.

Analysis:
The reply to this critique of working at a job you don't love, I think, would be twofold: (1) the alternative is worse; or (2) by spending 75% of your day working, you gain access to activities which occur in the 25% of your day which would be otherwise inaccessible, i.e. going to an expensive concert, taking a fancy vacation. Point 2 is especially important when you are young. When you are young, you are much more willing to experiment and do new things. Skydiving? Sure, why not. This is valuable. It makes you a more interesting person. The real benefit, I think, is that it makes you more valuable. New experiences shape how you think and change how you analyze things.

I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze. The 25% of your nonworking time has to be amazing to compensate for the 75% of time which sucks.

I think there is another issue, however. Lets say that a person chooses to follow their dreams. What is the trade off? Well, she doesn't have the money (at least initially) to do other entertaining things. Outside of what she has chosen to do for a profession, other fun experiences are unavailable. Is this trade off worth it?

Put another way, if she chooses to go deep into one of her interests, she renders the other interests inaccessible. This is an opportunity cost type issue. Not only has she shut off 75% of her day (which is devoted to working), but she has rendered the other 25% much less valuable because she is money-barred (read: too poor) from many experiences. So, in that case, she really has to enjoy the 75% of her day devoted to working at her chosen interest.

The long term sustainability of this path is predicated on becoming an expert within her chosen field. Which necessarily means the exclusion of other potentially interesting fields. Moreover, how does one become an expert in a field without foregoing other interesting opportunities? New experiences add to the development of expertise. If all experts within a given field followed the same path, I would think the field would soon grow stagnant and fossilized.

I think the best solution is to get your feet wet. Work jobs you don't like but which make money. If the tradeoff isn't worth it, switch.