I had spent 2 years teaching English in Taiwan. I was back home with my parents for 6 months or so and planning my next move. I was going to teach English in Korea and I wanted to make money and save it to pay off my loans.
So I had it in my mind that it was going to happen. I had a couple of friends who showed me the movie "The Secret". I started my mantras about teaching in Korea, making money and finding a good place to live... Independence.
I even got hypnotized so I could achieve those things.
Yep.
I flew to Korea without a job to the destination that I wanted - Busan. Within a month I had found a job making 2.3 million Won teaching 26 hours a week with very few office hours.
I never liked office hours well because you might say I am lazy or just have other interests.
I got a great studio apartment in downtown Busan (Seomyeon). It was awesome. In fact it was the nicest place I have ever lived in. It had super tall ceilings with a loft.
I had no complaints with the money or the house, but...
I worked with this guy, my manager who I wanted to kill. Sounds extreme I know, but this guy was a really evil person and unlike me was a Christian. Not me. I consider myself a kind person and others have told me that I am a free spirit and a little rebellious.
Maybe.
But working with that guy was just bad for my health.
So this post was actually inspired from a video I saw with Dave Trippin' in Japan. He mentioned that it's maybe not a good idea to focus on one thing. There are no absolutes. It's not about public schools or private schools. If you dig deep enough you will find dirt on both.
Anyways it reminded me of this.
So I will tell you now to not focus too much on one thing like: money (a high salary), getting a job by the beach or any other one thing.
See the big picture.
So I got a couple of things that I wanted, but really also got some stuff I didn't want. And it got worse.
This was around 2008.
I started that job at the end of 2007. By the time the year and contract was coming to a close the exchange rate between the dollar and the Won was really bad. Normally it was close to 1,000 Won = $1.00.
At the end of the year I received severance pay, my final salary, a pension and cash for my ticket home. I had around 18,000,000 Won. Yeahhhhh.
All year long I was thinking I would save maybe $15,000 or so. So with that money and a 1-1 exchange rate I would have saved about $18,000.
Thing is with the crappy exchange rate I ended up with like $8,000.
I was miserable. I had worked so hard and put up with so much crap, but I failed.
I was even offered a salary of 2.5 million Won to sign on for another year. Sounds great, but I was unhappy.
I failed so my advice is this.
Don't just focus on the money. Don't go anywhere for just the money. Don't focus on any one thing too much. See the big picture. Do your research and use your gut.
Chase intrinsic rewards not extrinsic ones.