[K-dog]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

I'm talking about income. There are surgeons in New York and Beverly Hills, and securities lawyes in New York, and leading edge plaintiff class action lawyers, who regularly earn enough income in one year to enable them to retire on just that year's income. But they are highly unusual, like the super-eilites in any profession.

The bottom line is there's really only one way to get "rich," and that's becoming a business leader, usually a highly successful business owner, a generator of vast wealth through inovation. Billing clients $400 or even $1,000 an hour won't make you rich. It will give you a high standard of living and seeming riches in the eyes of your milk man and gardner, but you won't be rich until you have done it for years and years, at least not by my definition of rich. And if you're doing it "for the money," you won't be happy.

Personally, I learned a long time ago that keeping score based on money is not too satisfying no matter who you are. You need to do what you do because you regard it as a calling to serve, and you live and love the labor, and this is especially true in the professions. It's just like no one should become a writer to get rich. I'm speaking what sounds like platitudes I know, but truer words were never spoken.

I work to get paid. I'm a lawyer because it is a profession that pays well. I've only been a lawyer since 2005 so I haven't done it long. I think you are reading too much into my statements if you think I am keeping score on wealth. I don't enjoy it any more than I have enjoyed my other jobs. Eventually, I'll leave it and do something else. I probably won't enjoy that either. Eventually, I'll stop doing things I don't enjoy. I probably won't get paid anymore.