Poll: Family and Friends vs Career Advancement

[Saltyk]

This is a simple question that has been rattling through the brain for a little while. So I thought I'd ask the members of the Escapist what they think.

Which is more important? Your personal relationships or your career and your advancement in that career? If you had the opportunity to move up in your company, but it meant moving and leaving all your family, friends, and general support network too far away to see on a regular basis, would you move?

 

[brahm]

I say take the career, staying in touch has never been easier and you will grow more as a person by getting out of your comfort zone.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

Leaving your future for other people to decide is a great way to end up resenting them. It's also not exclusive. My mother moved away from her family to further her own career as did my father and they kept in contact with their families. It's admittedly a short distance, but it's the difference between a small, rather unimportant town and a bustling metropolis.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

On a day to day basis, if it comes down to things such as working overtime, freelancing, and other "career" furthering things, I try to balance them out and manage my time so I can have the best of both worlds. Weekends are exclusively for my SO, friends and family, two evenings a week are usually also devoted to them. Work is Monday-Friday and two or three evenings a week.

If it's an impulse decision, my personal relationships almost always win, I work to live, I don't live to work, if I can't spend time with those I love, my work has no meaning.

----------------

If it came down to moving out of country for a career opportunity, my decision to do so would not be solely based on financial footing.

Would I like to live in another country? (Yes, if only to satisfy curiosity)
Can I bring my SO with me?
Would he be willing to go?
How often will I have the opportunity to travel home and see my family?

I have juggled around the possibility of moving to the other side of the country for my career, these are a few questions I'm running through my head at the moment, and so far the answers seem to be "Yes, but now is not the best time"

When I was in college, the answer would have been "Yes" hands down, now that I've graduated, gotten a steady job that pays my bills, am working toward building a future of my own and the potential that comes from my growing (or in the case of my grandparents, shrinking) relationships, my support network means more to me than ever before and that's a tree that is difficult to uproot.

 

[Michel Henzel]

Friends and Family. Don't even need to think about it. I really don't care about advancing or even having a "career" in the first place. Plus I like where I live, I hate change and I don't handle change well

 

[Kae]

I know what I chose and I'm not happy with my decision but I don't regret either, I dropped out of high school[footnote]Not to work, mostly because I was ridiculously emotionally unstable and had a nervous breakdown in the middle of class which left me too embarrassed to ever go back, which is a thing my family genuinely thought was hilarious, yet I've still wasted my life for them, relationships are complicated.[/footnote] and I worked hard, I supported my family and kept them from starving, my brothers wouldn't have been able to study if it wasn't for me, so no I don't regret it at all, I think it was a good noble choice to make, somebody has to make the sacrifice after all, but I'm most definitely not happy, I hate my job and the combination of that and the pressure of having to maintain a family of what is mostly people older than me made me really angry and frustrated and as a result we aren't really on speaking terms any-more even though I still send them money, it's pretty weird I absolutely hate them but I can't just leave them and the funny thing is that now I'm so bitter and tired that I just don't have the conviction to do anything.

It's nice to sacrifice something for someone but you gotta remember that in real life that doesn't mean they'll help you or even be nice to you, then again it's possible than I'm just a sucker, though I'm pretty sure I like being a martyr, I never even think twice about giving up something for someone else and I do like to brag about what an amazing human being I am.

In any case, there's no right answer, it's true that my life would have been better if I had studied because I'm a really fast learner, plus academically I was pretty smart and with the hindsight of knowing how I work and how highly most of my colleagues think of me it's pretty safe to say that I would have found success in whatever career I chose, I mean I'm hard-working, dedicated, smart an generally pretty nice, but I also have a ridiculously strong moral code and sense of duty and I probably would have been miserable thinking I didn't do what I felt was the thing I was morally obligated to do, in my case I don't think there's any possible scenario in which I'm happy but depending on what kind of person you are it might vary between choices, of course not everyone has to make that decision.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

As someone mentioned: this is the communication age, so unless you're taking a job on the space station, you can still talk with friends and family all the time, it's not like you're completely abandoning them.

Obviously part of this depends on what kind of advancement we're talking about and how much you want to stay with this company, but I'd take the job advancement. Likewise, learning to move to a completely new place and meet new people is an important ability to have (I moved constantly through my adult life, so I needed to do it a lot).