生活中有个简单的事实，即若想实现最理想的人生，既要有足够的财富来满足所需，还要有一份能给予自己成就感的工作——要实现这些目标，你首先要满足他人所需。这就是现实运作的模式，即你给予他人其所需，从而获得报酬，你的所得进而会帮你得到你想要的。如何把这件事做好是在你努力过上理想生活的过程中最大的难题之一。虽然这看起来很困难，但是当你被迫地去面对它时，你不仅会变得更强大，也会对社会做出更大的贡献，这对于人类社会能向好的方向不断进化来说是至关重要的。
如果你不能很好地解决这个难题，你就会被迫在两个选项中做出选择，一是从事你不喜欢的工作来获取你所需要的薪酬，二是做你热爱却不能支撑你生活所需的工作。这就是为什么我鼓励你们做到“将热爱的事与工作合二为一”（同时拥有两者），以及我想补充的“在一份能支付足够的薪酬来满足自己所需的工作中实现”。我尤其担心的是1) 那些一心只想追求热爱的事，却对自己人生中间这一阶段需要怎样的经济基础毫无头绪的年轻人，而这一阶段需要花的钱比他们想象的要多得多；2) 一些年纪稍长的人，他们已经习惯于当前的赚钱方式，却忽视了自己能去热爱的所有可能的事，从而去实现最理想的生活。
在思考如何同时拥有足够的财富和工作成就感的时候，我希望你能富有创造力和灵活性，同时，我也建议你去《原则》书里阅读关于以下两点的原则：1) 如何最大化地兼顾两个你认为互不相容的事情；2) 总会有一条最好的前进之路，只是你还没有发现它，而你要如何努力去找到它。显而易见，最容易的途径就是你热爱的事情如果做好了就能让你赚取足够财富的，当你热爱的事情越难让你获得理想的报酬，这个问题就会越难解决。比方说，你对创作诗歌感兴趣，但是仅靠创作诗歌来赚钱可能很难维持你的生活，因此你首先要考虑有没有其它你所热爱的事情是可以获取理想报酬的。在权衡你热爱的事情和获得理想报酬两者时不要太狭隘，你要聪明一点并做出适当妥协。你越聪明，做出的妥协就越少。举例来说，我认识一个对艺术创作很感兴趣的人，他希望在这个领域有所建树，例如说想成为一名画家。但是由于他需要金钱去支撑他和家庭的开支，而卖他的画并不能做到这一点，因此与其以这种方式坚持他的爱好，他明智地以另一种他喜爱也能获得很好收入的形式（成为一名商业艺术家）继续追求艺术创作这个爱好，这让他精神和经济上的需求都得以满足，同时在业余时间继续以自己喜欢的风格去创作。我发现，大部分人只要够聪明而且不过分挑剔，都能找到令自己有成就感并获得理想报酬的工作，从而实现好的生活。像解决生活中其他难题一样，解决这个难题的最好方式是: 1) 向最有可信度的人请教，听取他们所提供的最好的建议；2) 反复试验，并拥有坚定的决心。
It’s a simple fact of life that to have the best life possible you need both enough money to pay for what you need and wonderful work that fulfills you—and that to get these things, you need to give others what they need. That’s just the way reality works—i.e., you get paid for giving others what they want, which gives you the money to get what you want. How to do that well is one of the great puzzles you have to solve to have the life you want. Though difficult, being forced to solve this will both make you stronger and make you a greater contributor to society. It’s essential for the evolutionary process to work well.
If you don’t solve this puzzle well, you will be forced to choose between a) earning enough money to pay for what you need by doing work that you don’t like, and b) doing work that you like but not having enough money to pay for what you need. That’s why I want to encourage you to “make your passion and your work one and the same” (which will give you both things) and why I want to add “in a job that pays you enough money to take care of your needs.” I am especially worried about a) young folks who are focused on pursuing their passions while not having a clue about how much money will be required to pay for what they will need in the middle part of their lives (which is much more money than they needed in their early years and much more than they expect), and b) older folks who got so deeply in the habit of making money that they have lost sight of the full ranges of passions they can have that will give them the best life possible.
In approaching how to design your life to have both enough money and enough job satisfaction, I urge you to be both creative and flexible. I also suggest that you read my principles about a) how to get the most of two things that you think are mutually exclusive, and about b) how there is always a best path even though you might not see it at the time and how to go about finding it. Obviously the easiest path is to have a passion that will pay you well if you’re good at it, and the puzzle becomes progressively more difficult to solve the more the thing you’re passionate about doesn't pay well — e.g., you can have a passion to write poetry but will probably have a tough time surviving on the money you will earn from doing it. So start by thinking hard about if there’s anything that you’re passionate about that pays well. Don’t be too narrow in thinking about what brings you passion and what brings you money; be clever and make some compromises. The more clever you are, the fewer compromises you will have to make. By way of example, I know someone who has a passion to be artistically creative and would like to pursue it in a certain way—let’s say as a painter. Because he also needs money to pay for his and his family’s needs and can’t seem to do that by selling his paintings, rather than being stuck pursuing his passion exactly that way, he is wisely pursuing another type of artistically creative career that he enjoys (as a commercial artist) that pays him well enough to satisfy both his spiritual and financial needs while doing exactly the sort of painting he likes to do on the side. I have found that most people can find careers that provide both good job satisfaction and good money in order to have a good life if they’re clever enough and not overly particular. Solving this puzzle, like solving all puzzles in life, is best done by 1) seeking the best advice one can get from the most believable people one can get to provide it, and 2) through trial and error and a lot of determination.
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