That’s the thing about banking - they make $$$$ on paper but the hourly wage is ridiculously low. Sure you bring home big money, but you work the equivalent of two or more FULL TIME jobs, and have no days off for up to 3 months.
Notice JP Morgan released this as a “look how great of a company we are!” bit 
. Means the industry is much worse on average.
I may not make big money, but I’m typing this while hand grazing my young horse and watching the others enjoy their pasture.
I work in “finance” and have legit seen folks fall out, pass out and full blown panic attacks at their desks. One year, we had the ambulance out on what felt like a weekly basis.
And we aren’t working 80 hour weeks. I’m not sure it’s any better to have your hours capped and then be freaking out bc your work isn’t done and the bosses are breathing down your neck
Yeah it is a lot. And by limiting that what they’re saying is people used to work 100+ hrs a week. I would guess that those wanted to move ahead still work well over 80.
It’s good food for thought. It’s impossible to ride horses more than one or two days a week at those hours. So even if you could afford to send your horses down to WEF, really you’d be sending them down for your trainer to show and get a class or two on the weekend. You very likely wouldn’t be ripping around the 1.20m or doing the 3’6” hunters because you wouldn’t have the strength/fitness/finesse. Plenty of people are happy with that arrangement. I would prefer to ride 6 days a week no matter what. I can’t afford to show at the big shows, I will never own the horseflesh, but week after week after week I spend hours in the saddle. Year round. I would choose that 100/100 times
In the company I worked for, this was true, but with qualifiers. For example, the last 4 years before I retired, I packed up and moved to a different state and worked from home. I was allowed to do that because I was a senior staff member with a proven record of independent, high performance.
They have also hired new employees and allowed them to remain in their current locations, working from home. But those are all highly qualified individuals whose expertise can’t be found in other candidates who are more amenable to relocating.
Other than those situations, employees are expected to show up multiple days/week at the office.
People who are high performers and whose skills and contributions are highly valued by their employers have a lot more options in controlling their work life. But usually in order to reach that point, it takes hard work and time toiling away while not having a lot of control over your work life.
LOL no it isn’t if you’re an IB
I regularly BILLED 90 -100 hrs a week for months /years on end, not including commuting and admin hours 
If 80 hrs/week is a lot to you, you’re certainly not cut out for IB. But maybe at a Swiss bank you can work 80 for hundreds of thousands of dollars less per year than a US bank.
You’re barely 16 (don’t yet have a CA drivers license) – let yourself grow up and you’ll learn what sort of lifestyle you want to have after you get into and finish uni!
I get that working 7 AM - 10 PM Monday through Friday plus nearly as many hours Saturday/Sunday must have been really really lucrative but what motivated you? It seems like quality of life, hobbies, socializing, travel, etc. would have been shelved for years on end so I’m curious what kept you pushing at that level?
Money & (future) Freedom / Independence
My family made me financially independent by uni years and there’s gonna be no transfer of wealth to me - one parent is already dead and died in 7 figures of debt and homeless. I grew up in a financially chaotic home and I never want to depend on ANYONE for wealth besides my employer as we live in a late stage version of capitalism.
I’m also introverted and don’t really like or respect 85- 90% of the human population (I think they’re asleep / boring / unsophisticated/ uninteresting / uninspiring). I’m neurodivergent (I think that is pretty obvious in a lot of my posts) &
I have CPTSD which results in a lack of empathy. I find so many people’s perspectives dissatisfying due to the horrors of which I have endured being so much “more” than their in comparison “simple problems that I don’t even view as problems” and I lack the emotional empathy to care that much about their perspective that feels sheltered and juvenile to me, personally.
I have cognitive empathy, but I often just find most people / their problems/ their lives completely simple and not relatable. I intellectually get that for them putting down an elderly animal is sad, but compared to what I have experienced, it doesn’t register to me as a big deal in the slightest. I have to mask in a lot of interpersonal relationships with the “gen pop”.
I say all this to sum up why I don’t care much about socialization and that my definition of quality of life is very different than others’. Means to an end and for me… the means totally justified the ends.
I didn’t have a long term romantic relationship from 21- 28/29ish - I was a f* girl and had a great time with many partners who we would mutually discard each other when it got too familiar or boring. Back then I rarely saw anyone as a psychological equal and I found most men too “simple” and filled with gender role bias and the ones who were as tortured as I was where we mentally and emotionally “saw” each other - also couldn’t be in a healthy relationship for the same reasons -general emotional unavailability.
I am working on emotional empathy via therapy and chemical treatments… it is slow progress,
I am married now (married in my 30s) to someone that feels generally the same as the above ^. I met them when I was winding down my PE days. Childfree.
I quit horses - I used to run marathons during that time, I had friends who I either only saw 3x a year or partied with between the hours of 1am and 6am – I slept less than 4 hours a night for about a decade… I partied and traveled some - mostly during Christmas / New Years. I had about 1 month off each year and did stuff then and sacrificed the rest.
Was it worth it, for me (I truly recognize that I am not within the range of “normal”), yes, 100%
One of the things it’s hard to fathom as a teen is that most professions with good pay and conditions require that you identify with the job and get real satisfaction out of doing it and being it. Those satisfactions vary obviously depending on the job and person. I’m speaking as someone that made a midlife shift to being a university professor. Very decent income but you had to really commit to the field and trust the process to get there. Not IB money or winter circuit money but good enough for me. Same is true of you’re in law, medicine, politics etc etc. You can have big expensive hobbies like a horse for sure once you are established but you won’t get established if all your identity and sense of self is wrapped up in your horse.
A professional identity is something you grow into over time in your 20s. It’s not something you have at 15. It’s normal and good to have a huge emotional commitment to a hobby or sport or horse as a teen. But as you go through college and your 20s hopefully you find a profession that you can whole heartedly buy into and that gives you joy and identity and autonomy.
As a teen I only felt those things around horses but as an adult I have multiple sources.
The only advice I have for the OP is this. Unless you have a trust fund behind you, you’re going to spend many many more hours in whatever profession you choose than you are going to spend riding and showing. You are literally going to devote 8-10-12 hours per day in your profession so you can spend 2-3 hours at the barn. So choose wisely. Choose something that you enjoy well enough that you deem it’s worth it.
Also remember that a healthy life is about balance. Yes, your hobby is important, but a career and relationships and taking care of your home and having children (if you choose) and spending time on your spiritual/emotional/personal growth are also important. The least interesting people I know are those who have nothing and do nothing but horses.
I will say some of this is location dependent. I’m in a lower COL area, and have many friends who bought horses early into their careers. The could afford to, because owning a horse just isn’t as big an expense where I am.
I’m in law, started my career in NYC, and definitely took the approach of establishing myself before buying a horse. Still bought one early on in my career because I moved out of NYC, but if I had stayed I would have waited longer until I was more established. The time commitment and money commitment is just so different when you’re paying $2500+ and spending 45 minutes+ in a commute, vs living someplace where the barn is 20 minutes and $600 a month in board.
It is a lot. Most adults have zero desire to work that many hours.
Absolutely horses can be affordable in lower cost areas. Indeed I am in a high cost area but at a self board club barn where my stall plus hay are less than $500 a month. But I don’t think this is the kind of low-key recreational and trail riding and schooling show world the OP wants. Of course at 35 it may look wonderful to OP, but no one there is showing multiple horses in nationally ranked shows
My point was that horses don’t have to be a big expensive hobby. Absolutely OP’s original post was talking about showing the AA circuit with multiple horses, but the conversation has continued to grow.
Your point about your situation vs mine highlights it as well. People are absolutely showing multiple horses at nationally ranked shows out of my barn and other comparably priced programs in my area. For around that cost you can be in a show barn program that goes to Florida, HITs, etc. But it doesn’t sound like that is feasible where you are.
I’m not saying moving to a lower cost of living area magically solves the problem. You’ve raised completely valid points about the drawbacks (including overall lower salaries). But it may be a lot more feasible to have a cute horse in a good program and afford some shows as a young professional in a lower COL area than it is in a major city.
Yes. If I had landed my same job in one of the smaller cities in my province, my salary would not be lower but my cost of living would be very much lower, for my own housing and for a horse.
Or something you never have. I never did figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.
This is such good advice. You are going to spend more waking hours working than doing anything else. Choosing something you actually enjoy and find satisfying is incredibly valuable. Not everyone has that choice. But if you do, choose to do something that brings you joy as well as money. Showing multiple horses (the post title) will not make your life enough better to compensate for choosing a career you hate. Plus, as many have suggested, very few careers provide enough money and free time for that anyway.
Love me some Kai Ryssdal!
Happy to take a look at yours as well!
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