UNITED STATES—Work it is part of every Americans life. We have to work in order to survive. When I say survive I’m referring to the basic elements of life like shelter, food and clothing. However, why is the psychology of work so tiring on so many Americans? It’s an honest question I’m posing because I know we all struggle when it comes to work. There are those days where we hate work to the core; so much to the point that we want to throw in the towel.
It is no secret that there are many Americans who don’t have that dream job. We work that job just to put food on the table, pay the bills and stay afloat. We get up; we get out of bed, get in the car and deal with the chaos and madness that is expected of our jobs. The record keeps playing over and over (in terms of the mundane aspects of the job).
Don’t misconstrue my point; this is not about wanting excitement in our job, its more about doing something that provides purpose. Purpose matters in the employment world. You want to do something that truly makes you happy and fulfilled. You don’t spend four years in college studying to come out and find yourself working at a retail shop or a fast-food restaurant. Some of you might be surprised to hear that, but I have many friends who are in that position. You paid $50k-$100k for four years of college, and you can’t even land a job where you make more than $25k a year?
Yes, that is a tough pill to swallow and just raises a question of if college is needed to land a decent paying job. Look that is a whole conservation for another day, so I’m not even going to get into it. Back to work, what can we do to find more fulfillment? Should we just take the gamble and do what makes us happy? I know it sounds trivial, but sometimes you have to take a risk or you will always ask yourself that question, “What if I just took the gamble? How would my life be different?
Oh, I know I’m not the only person thinking this. It nags you in the back of your mind, what if I quit my job today? What if I just took a leap of faith and pursued that dream that I’ve placed on the back burner for reasons I cannot fully explain. Life is unexpected and risk taking is part of it. Now, this does not mean just quit your job today, without having a backup. Life is not forgiving to stupidity so you have to be careful of doing something too rash without weighing the pros and the cons.
If you sense your job offers more cons than pros, and the other option that is ‘over there’ might be more suitable, than the writing is on the wall. There isn’t much to think about. However, if you find yourself in that conundrum where the pros and cons are even, then that is a tough decision to make. The only thing I could say that might make bring clarity in your decision is the following question: “Can I do this the rest of my life and be happy?”
If the answer to that question has any sense of doubt or you know that you can’t, you have the answer to your question. It doesn’t take rocket scientist to make the decision you have to make. You might be looking at your hourly wage, you might be looking at your co-workers, you might have the boss from hell or you feel overworked, underappreciated and just tired. Remember when I say tired, I don’t mean that as in exhausted, but you no longer have the fight to keep doing what you’re doing.
You might say why is this bad? It can lead to you blowing up. That is never a good thing, you have to find balance or a way to express how you feel and do it in a professional forum. Why? Anything else places you in that tricky situation where you might just lash out and say things you mean, but hoped to deliver in a better way. A lot of the time when you lash out at work, it’s because you feel a certain way about the job that you have.
Go back to school, try a new trade, or simply focus your energy and any spare time you have to your Passion, and I say that with a capital ‘P’ because it is the thing that makes you happy. You care nothing about money, but the fulfillment you get doing something that changes the lives of others or yourself. Work is supposed to be fun; the moment it is no longer fun it raises the serious question that we all have to ask ourselves: Why am I doing this and is it time for me to move on?
We’ve all posed that question to ourselves at some point in our life, and you know when it comes to the forefront its saying something huge that you can no longer ignore.
Written By Kelsey Thomas
