What career should I take? - choose one thing and stay focus

If you are starting your career or in the process of re-evaluating yourself (like I am doing at the moment), one important question that you must answer and be clear is the following:

At the end of the day, what do you want to get with your work? Ultimately, you have to select one of these three choices: money, fame, or freedom...one and only one.

There is no good or bad answer. But it is important that the answer comes from you, not your father, not your grandmother, but from you. You should not feel embarrassed or shameful to pick any one of the choice, choosing money doesn't mean that you are a greedy person nor choosing fame means you just want to a celebrity. Different people have different motivations. The most important thing is be true to yourself.

By asking myself this question, it helps me narrow down and select my career choice. I will tell you at the end what I want to focus on. But for now, let me explain why answering this question can help you narrow down your career choice.

If you want to focus on making money, the path that a lot of people took is through the financial industry: become a broker, work at a hedge fund, do algorithmic stock trading. One of my friends who works in Chicago, doing algorithmic stock trading made at least 1,000,000USD (30,000,000THB) last year. A couple of my friends who work at a hedge fund in NYC, their annual salaries are about 400,000USD (12,000,000THB). These are the people who are constantly under pressure and huge stress. Their normal hours are at least 100 hours per week (get in at office around 8am..and get out at 11pm). You can earn a lot of money if you want to focus on it.

If you want people to recognize you and earn the fame, you have to take a different path, a different career. You have to pick the area that you want to focus on and really be expert at it. It can be technology, art, pets, (ความเป็นอัจริยะ) geniusness, startups, anything. Once you are an expert, try promoting the field - write books, volunteer to be a speaker, teach at schools/universities. Basically, evangelize your expert area so people know about it and recognize that it is important. With that, people will remember you.

Lastly, some people want to build something that give them freedom to do whatever they want to do. If you want to go and live in Peru for a year, your work allows you to do it. Notice that you don't have to be super rich to go live anywhere in the world. People don't need to stay at a 5-star resort in order to be happy. It is good enough that you have created something that doesn't require your supervision and gives you enough income so that you can live in a Bungalow in Costa Rica.

For me right now, I want to be able to do what I want to do..able to create and build things that I believe in without having many other responsibilities. Frankly speaking, I have been battling within myself for a while because of the 'other responsibilities'. It is conflicting in me because these 'other responsibilities', will yield fame that I probably get in the future...but do I want to focus on fame?
Tough decision..but the thing I decide to focus on now is...Freedom

What are you focusing on right now while you are building your career?