You want to eat - you work. You got someone to take care of - you work at any job you can get, even if it is standing knee deep in the sewer shovelling sh*t (before you ask - yes, I have). It is nothing to do with work ethic, just doing what you need to do to get by.
No one gives you anything. You only get what you earn. Whether you earn it behind a desk, at a griddle or on your back is irrelevant.
If work didn't suck, they wouldn't need to pay us for it. And every damned job on earth has parts that suck. Even the good ones.
Perhaps its the type of work you are doing that you hate rather than working itself. What do you like doing? Re-train and get a job that involves something you are passionate about. If you hate working in an office - then work somewhere that doesn't involve an office. If you don't like a 9-5 get a job that involes shift work of flexi-time. If you don't like working for someone else, why not go out on your own? Not everyone loves their job, but if you find a decent one it makes the day go a bit faster.
You should watch these two videos from Ken Robinson on TED talks that pertains to exactly this and how the world is upside down with the majority of people hating their jobs and watching their lives fly by them. Unfortunately he doesn't have a concrete, individual solution, but at least they are talking about it.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html
I completely agree with the post above from 'working girl'... you need to do something you are passionate about, or at least interested in, and it will make your life seem much more plentiful.
MM I agree that you have to do what you have to do to get by and make ends meet, especially when you have someone relying on you like kids or some other kind of dependant. But it should be the absolute last resort to do something you hate day-in/day-out. It sucks the life out of you and it's not what life is about. I truly believe there is a good job for everyone out there if we just applied ourselves to find the right fit for us. It's an arduous road ahead and along the way you most likely have to work jobs you hate (hey brad pitt used to be that guy dressed up as a chicken on the side of the street advertising some kind of restaurant!), but at least you know that while you are working that job you hate, you are making efforts to head towards something you love - you're not going to be stuck in that sh*tty job forever.
Without that, I think I would go crazy knowing I'd be stuck doing something I hate so much everyday and only living for the weekends. What kind of a life is that only living 2 /7th's of your existence?!
I actually wouldn't advise doing something you are passionate about, as there is a chance that you'll end up hating your passion.
Keep your passions for when you want to live them, not for conjuring up on paid demand.
I find the times when work seems to drag is when I'm not spending enough time on things outside of work.
If I keep myself busy with other things (I do a sport, a weekly social gathering, volunteer work, and study), then work occupies my mind too much and I start focusing on all it's annoyances too much.
So my advice, since you've had so many jobs, is to find a job which doesn't require too much responsibility or love (otherwise it would be unfair to your employer/clients).
Then spice up your life with other things.
Then you can think about all the other parts of your life all day at work, rather than thinking about how %^&* the work is.
If I *don't* keep myself busy... :P
I can understand your advise, and it's right to some degree. It makes working hard to earn the money that allows you to do those great things a little more acceptable.
But I completely disagree what you say about avoiding doing something you are passionate about. I don't want to make base assumptions, but it sounds like you simply just haven't found your passion in life yet. Because a passion is something you don't run out of steam for... it's always there, pushing you to do more and go forward, while enjoying mostly every bit of it.
Sure there are days where you're tired and you just need a break, everybody needs to relax now and then. But passionate people are those you see who excel in life and seem to have success written all over them? It's not a coincidence, it's because they love what they do. And when you love what you are doing only good things can come of it eventually because you will never stop dedicating yourself to it.
I think what you are referring to is not a passion, it's maybe a hobby or an interest. Those things can be like fads where one year you really like to play soccer, but then you slowly come out of it and you realize now you want to play baseball because you're a bit bored of soccer. That's not a passion, because a passion sticks with you for your entire life. It's who you are, it's what you breathe, what you sweat, because it's in your every pores.
As I suggested in my earlier post, watch those talks from Ken Robinson on TED talks... he covers the fact that our societies kill our opportunities to find our passion. It's sad that you think like this because it means you haven't really found yours yet.
But I believe you, and everyone else in the same boat, should keep looking and never settle for anything less because otherwise you'll be spending your life just "settling" for what you've got instead of striving for the ultimate package. Maybe some people would be content with that, and I don't want to judge... to each their own I suppose. But I know I certainly couldn't.
I was only offering another consideration for the OP.
We are theorizing on opposite extreme ends of a spectrum, presuming that 'work' is the actual problem variable. Most peoples final decision (including my own) probably fall somewhere in the bell curve.
Apart from that, we're all arguing the same thing:
life's too short to be miserable.
When I offer advice it's either from experience or from the heart (or it's nonsensical to make people laugh), otherwise, I wouldn't bother.
Which is why I'm so thoroughly insulted to have paragraphs dedicated to how I've 'just never found my passion'. I left school to follow my passion, have worked with industry leaders, have traveled the world with my profession, and had various famous clients, including Her Majesty's Royal Squeeze, The Duke of Edinburgh. I'm not particularly talented, but eagerness and inspiration took me further than than ambition and sucking-up took my peers.
I'm moving onto something that (after a 8year doctorate) will give me flexibility to apply myself, yet move around various fields within my new career. The passion didn't 'die', it's more of a love-hate abusive relationship, and we're growing in different directions - despite our 'True(love)Work' beginnings.
Just because my advice doesn't match your subjective ideological perception of reality, gives you no right to nullify 11 years of hard work, expertise and sacrifice.
Both of our theories at extremes are ridiculous, but that's what you get when playing the devils advocate; something I've been called into question for doing before on GuySpeak.
I should not ever have to feel like I have to justify myself, especially when my intent was not to attack you personally, but to add another perspective so the OP can be well informed as to base her future decisions regarding something that has caused her enough distress to reach out to strangers for help.
My intentions are completely selfless.
The guys here are great. Their answers are mostly common sense and I've personally found it useful to apply the same amount of humour to my everyday problems.
Having said all of that, this isn't the first time I've been compelled to justify myself for my rather cheap opinions, just because my (subjective) reality blows somebody else's ideological absolutisms into smithereens.
This is a problem for me, so I won't be contributing to GuySpeak any more.
I am very sorry I've offended you, my post was never meant in that sense and I truly would never want to discourage anyone from participating in these discussions.
I never meant for you to have to justify yourself, I honeslty was just trying to provide a more positive outlook on what I thought was a retort coming from someone who's been jaded in life. I wasn't trying to put you down, but bring you up. Yes perhaps it is ideological, but without positive ideas striving for a better future, what else are you left with? That's what I believe in anyway.
As I said before I did not mean to make base assumptions, and perhaps I did and for that I apologize. As you said yourself, I also draw on my life experiences to comment on here and I have found a passion for which I don't think I will ever tire of. Of course there are days where you just don't want to do anything, as MM said, but sooner or later it always comes back for me and I want to continue doing it. And I've known or learnt about others who feel the exact same way - for them their passion is who they are and they would never be able to seperate themselves from it. So because you said that you felt that you shouldn't do what your passionate about because you could end up hating it, made no sense to me because to me I could never end up hating my passion, never. Perhaps we just have different ways of defining a passion... But I was never trying to 'nullify 11 years of your hard work'. Absolutely not... I'll try to explain:
I've seen what living a life without finding your passion looks like, and these people for whom I care deeply about often say the same things you do, hence why I assumed you might not have found yours yet as well. And my retorts to them are the same as the one I wrote to you. It was not ill-conceived whatsoever and I'm sorry if it came off that way, I've said the same thing to my own father who is still convinced that life is just meant to be lead this way. And perhaps he's right - of course we all think we are right in our own minds.
To me it's not a matter of who's right and wrong though, I was just trying, as I've done the same with my dad, to offer a more positive outlook to try and give this person a little "boost". With my dad for instance, I'd do this because I thought it was so sad to see my dad live his life hating the better part of his days because he hated his job so much. But he did it because he had to provide for his family and I'm incredibly proud and indebted to him for that, but I would have loved so much for him to be happy too. And it's not like he was incredibly miserable, he was happy to have his family and live an average life, but when I saw him do things he loved, like build a beautiful dining room table from scratch, that's where I saw him light-up, and I wanted that so much for him but he was so jaded with negative thoughts (negative to me, realistic in the minds' of others maybe) about "how life works" that he wouldn't allow himself to even try doing something different, taking a leap of faith into the unknown and trying to do what he loved. So my positive encouragements that he should try to do what he's passionate about were not about putting him down, but rather the only way I could find as his child to try to encourage him.
That was his choice and I don't judge him for it, as I wasn't trying to judge you for what you said either, I was just offering up what you call an ideological view, and what I would call a dose of positivity, because I truly believe in karma, and if you are positive about something, and truly believe the best in it, that positivity will in some form come back to you. Maybe some people think that's ridiculous, or ideological like you were saying, but I don't.
It's hard to explain all of this in a post, but I want to stress how sorry I am if I offended you. It really wasn't meant like that at all. Please don't feel discouraged from posting again because of what I said, I should not have assumed perhaps, but in no way even with that assumption was I trying to put you down. In my own, perhaps weird, way, I was only trying to help.
It's probably too late for either of you to see this (I couldn't sleep and found myself perusing questions from a few days back) but Elle, I agree with you. I didn't find your reply to be nearly as offensive as Toy Honey Lung made it out to be.
Toy Honey Lung, if you ever read this, I hope you didn't quit Guyspeak! You're right, in a sense--a lot of the commenters on here do like to commiserate together and, you could even argue, make themselves feel better after the often wonderfully brutal honesty the Guys give in their answers. But I think that nearly all of us commenters have good intentions. Elle had no way to know all of that stuff about you finding your passion, as you didn't elaborate on any of it until afterwards, so I truly do not think she was trying to attack or offend you. Hopefully, you had a change of heart and decided to keep using the site. We could all benefit from different perspectives, whether they're popular or not. That's basically what this site is trying to facilitate, methinks!
My job is my passion - well, both of them are, the writing and the one that pays the majority of the bills.
Even though I love my jobs, there are days when I hate everything about them and don't want to get out of bed.
It happens to everyone.
Welcome to life. I think very few people actually like going to work. It's inevitable that you'd get tired of it after doing the same, often monotonous work day-in and day-out. But think about it--you'd probably rather be at work bored but getting paid than at home bored and unemployed.
Look. Some people would actually LOVE to have those jobs that you complain about so much. Take my family, for example. My father has been unemployed for over two years now, despite applying to and getting leads on many jobs that fell through. And I know plenty of people in similar situations, including recent college grads who had to move back in with their parents for lack of jobs.
Stop complaining, please. I understand they're not always a barrel of fun and giggles, but you're fortunate to have an income.
Of course, if you'd rather, just go ahead and stop working so your position can be filled by someone who would actually appreciate it.
I wish I had work I could complain about. At this point, having a job is a blessing.
I think aside from finding your passion, you have to start thinking the good things your work brings you. May not be the type of work you're at right now, but the simple things you might have taken for granted while working in that office:
An annoying co-worker who still has a smile to offer when you're whining about your paperwork, the cup of coffee you make when you try to stay awake in front of your computer, your boss who compliments you once out of the million criticisms you get from him/her.
While doing that, you can always try and find a different job and get yourself ready for some self-upgrade and reinvention. Otherwise, you can keep complaining for the rest of your stay in that office of yours.
I know what this girl means. I had a job that I hated and I worked there for 2 years. Im a hardworker, WHEN I am at work and its like being a slave and doing hard labour. Everyday I came home, pooped out and ready to die. But the worst part was having horrible co-workers. I hated them, and left. Now Im just a little bit happier, but guess what dear? If you hate it and the money dont even matter, just walk out. I did.
Like working girl said above you need to find something your passionate about and start there. If you need to go back to school to learn something new skills do that. Or you can try volunteering with someone locally if its a a field where actual experience is more important than formal training.
But what I think you really need to do, is to some soul searching, it sounds to me like you still haven't figured out who you are and what you want out of life yet. Until you do, nothing will satisfy you.
Good Luck!
i'm a student, and i've been relying completely on my parents for money since i was 17 (i'm 22). did lots of job hunting but to no avail. two years ago i had a job at a cafe, but i only lasted two months. didn't work since then until last month when i started working full-time for the summer. it's a McJob, there are times when it sucks, but i'm finally earning an income. so while i might complain about a particular day/situation/customer, i'm not gonna complain about the job.
(well of course i relied on my parents before i was 17, but i moved out at 17 and they still had to pay for everything, is what i meant)
In this economy, it seems like overindulgence to even entertain the thought that one MUST work at a job that satisfies one's passions. I have been unemployed for the past 5 months, and by now, even a job flipping burgers at Mickey D's looks appealing. Why not just do your best in your job search, but when all is said and done, be thankful that you got a job. Anything is better than nothing, as long as it doesn't go against the law, against your principles, or sends you past your sanity threshold of frustration. Oh, and I agree with Toy Honey Lung. Fill your off hours with satisfying hobbies and fun, and work won't seem like such a chore after all.
In this economy, it seems like overindulgence to even entertain the thought that one MUST work at a job that satisfies one's passions. I have been unemployed for the past 5 months, and by now, even a job flipping burgers at Mickey D's looks appealing. Why not just do your best in your job search, but when all is said and done, be thankful that you got a job. Anything is better than nothing, as long as it doesn't go against the law, against your principles, or sends you past your sanity threshold of frustration. Oh, and I agree with Toy Honey Lung. Fill your off hours with satisfying hobbies and fun, and work won't seem like such a chore after all.
did the deadbeat in my life and his equally unproductive not so newer model post this question? joking of course (i dont think you are a deadbeat) but seriously, hard to have empathy here. there is no better way to live than being a productive member of society. which means working to contribute to it. to breath air costs money, to breath clean air, costs even more. if you dont want to work, someone else has got to pay for you and not many people like picking up that slack. as many previous commenters have said, to have a job is a blessing. there are people crying themselves to sleep at night because their homes are being foreclosed on. and we are in the position we are in because too many people got greedy and wanted something for nothing. it's called work because its not fun sometimes. but eating is great.
Amen! You nailed it, knocked it outta the ball park! Nuff said. WORK. LOL
actually, the solution is kind of simple ....
you hate jobs, dont do any... and one day when you 'll have enough of the rest, (with accompanying problems) you might would want to go back to work ;-)
....
I change jobs pretty frequently, not because I hate them, but because I get bored, once I have learned all new, I want a new opening, for that reason I specially tell, at the job interview that I want a 10-12 months max job with defined goals. it works for me.. yes there are periods of no work, for that I have banque balance made through work, to live.
maybe you should accept that pattern you have, and go along it- short term assignments??? what do you say
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