If people say it's not for the money, then I suppose it's the desire for recognition that motivates them to work hard every day. Though for most people, I believe it's a combination of both.
Would you deny that it's not satisfying to be able to pay for your own rent, food, and petrol? That sense of knowing that you can survive on your own is gratifying.
And could you honestly say that it does not do your self-esteem one bit of good to walk into the office and be looked at with admiration and respect because you're really good at what you do.
But being new to the world of work, I wonder if that's really true, and I'm begging those who know to enlighten me.
Here is a question I'm currently asking myself: Ten years from now, when the alarm clock starts screaming at 6am to wake me up for work, will "money and a sense of self-esteem" be the powerful driving forces they are today?
Before anyone sheds some light on that existential query, let me tell you my understanding of this matter so far.
Over the short period of time I have been a professional journalist, I have interviewed quite a few people who have inadvertently been quite helpful in my current contemplation.
I didn't directly ask them the question, but the stories of their lives sort of gave me another way of looking at it.
I can't remember what I asked 2012 SEA Write winner Vipas Srithong, but I remember clearly that his answer was: "I have been writing for over 10 years and nobody knew who I was."
Boosting my courage against his intimidating face and his Che Guevara beard, I dared to ask 2010 SEA Write poet Zakariya Amataya outright whether he would still be a poet today if he wasn't winning awards and none of his works were ever getting published. With a quick nod, he said: "I have always been a poet since I started writing poetry, and I would be doing exactly the same thing I'm doing now no matter what."
I guess they made me understand the issue more deeply, but they also made it more confusing. Surely, it's not only money that they are after, as a literary career is not exactly financially ideal these days, but they didn't seem too keen about the awards they got either. Some might say that these people just pretend to be indifferent when they win when secretly it's what they have wanted all along. But honestly, is the idea of winning some literary prize tempting enough to have kept them going, working their arses off every day for more than 10 years? I don't think so.
Recently, I interviewed veteran watercolour painter Kosol Pinkul, who is suffering from muscular weakness which is making it difficult for him to move his hands and arms. At worst he struggles to stand up and walk.
Instead of giving up his career, he just kept on painting, starting from dragging his frail fingers through paint to make simple forms and patterns. It was as if he wasn't a renowned and respected artist who has been working all his life, but a five-year-old kid having his first art class. He has regained his strength and can now paint just like before.
The focus of that interview and what I later wrote, which will appear in this section in the days ahead, was about how "art therapy" could, incredibly, restore a person's health. But did Kosol suffer all that pain just so that he can prove how wonderful art therapy can be? I don't think so.
There's someone out there who has been writing for years just so that he can be a writer, with or without recognition. There's someone out there who has been writing poems just so that he can be a poet, with or without a prestigious literary award. And there's someone out there who keeps on painting, not so that his health will get better, but simply because he wants to keep on being a painter.
And I'm sure there's also someone out there doing something, not for money or a sense of self-esteem, but for the sake of getting to do that thing they choose to do.
Maybe the answer to all this is simply to find what you love, and keep at it no matter what and for no other reason than getting to do what you love.
But again, being new in this complicated adult world, I could be wrong.
Kaona Pongpipat is a feature writer for Life.