Relativism- Finance and Life

That’s an interesting thread to say the least. The problem in finance is that it attacts a lot of egocentric people. These people have founded that working crazy hours and making big bucks is the best way to feed their ego. This is particularly true in the front office (I’m midoff). In my pervious job, I was working 55 hours a week and that was much more than enough for me. I will never want to be an I-Banker working like 70 to 90 hours a week including weekend. Even if they make three times what I earn. I’ve known an analyst working in the IB department of a major group in Toronto completely burn out at 26 y/o. And the work according to him was not that interesting; there was a lot of spreadsheet maintenance, preparation of power point presentations, preparations of sales pitch and so on. Hell, these guys don’t even have the time to invest their money!!! For my part, I definitely prefer a more normal schedule(40-50 hours a week). I am perfectly aware that I could make more money but on the other I’m trying to use my investment knowledge to invest my money wisely which will offset for the money I’m giving-up by not working in IB or something like that. Someone mentionned that money has a decreasing return and it’s very true. I’n not at that point yet though. Personally, I don’t need to live in a mansion with 17 bathrooms to be happy. All I need is a bedroom, a kitchen, a living room and a washroom…and a nice good looking girl to share my life. But philosophically, I will say that it takes all kind of people to make a world.