65. TWO SALARIES
What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.
- Mother Theresa
People often ask me about book sales. They want to know how many copies I’ve sold and if I’ve had a best seller. To date, I always feel like I’m letting them down when I say I’ve never even come close to turning a profit.
Maybe that won’t be the case forever, I don’t know, because that’s one of those things I don’t really control. Instead, my focus is on making sure what I write is as good as I can make it. As for the rest, I don’t lose much sleep over it. For now, though, the obvious question those disappointed people seem to want to ask next is why on earth I would pursue a career with such obvious poor prospects. The answer, is that money is only one of the available rewards.
Before he was an author, Steven Pressfield was a United States Marine. Now, as anyone who’s worn a uniform can tell you, soldiers, sailors, marines, airwomen and airmen all share one thing: they like to complain. In fact, there’s a saying that if the troops aren’t complaining, they’re not really happy and one thing troops like to complain about most, is their pay.
In Pressfield’s book, Turning Pro, there’s a section where a gunnery sergeant explains that pay for any job is made up of two salaries1. First, there’s the material salary. The money, in other words, although the benefits also include things like recognition, respect, and status. The material salary is anything that can be given to you.
The second salary is the psychological salary. This one is more intangible, more difficult to define. It’s not happiness, but it’s related, more like meaningfulness, or giving purpose to one’s life. The difference here, is that the psychological salary can’t be given to you from others. Instead, it must come from within yourself.
Now, the material salary is important because it provides for those things we need to survive, like food and drink, a place to live, clothes to wear, and, to a certain extent, a sense of belonging. The material salary moves us up the bottom rungs of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, it helps make life more comfortable, and it satisfies many of our needs and wants, which can improve happiness. Happiness, therefore, is a function of what others give to us.
Meaningfulness, on the other hand, is a function of what we give to others. Without meaning in our lives, it’s impossible to achieve our full potential, which is why self-actualization is at the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. What’s more, since meaningfulness is based on what we give to others, the psychological salary can only be received if we choose a life of service.
Put another way, the only way to live a meaningful life, the reason I would keep writing even if I never make a cent, is to be of service to others. Even more, to lead a meaningful life we must be prepared to go back into the cave and use our service to inspire others to join us in helping our communities prepare for climate change.
But it’s not without risk.
Because we can’t help everyone.
Steven Pressfield, Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life's Work, New York, Black Irish Entertainment LLC: 2012.