Why Do You Hate Your Job? | The Secret to Being Happy No Matter What

Chances are if you are on Steemit, you have an alternative view about the world, you are looking to escape from something or create something new within a community of simpleminded people.

For me, it is all the above. I discovered pretty early on that I didn't want to live like everyone else. While all my friends were still hanging around my home town or getting jobs in the nearby city, I moved across the country to study and start a career for myself. This is nothing unusual but I soon discovered once I had graduate, I was still searching for more. My career job wasn't the exciting adventure I had always dreamed it to be and getting on the train every day, seeing the same sad faces trudging off to the jobs they hate made me feel like I was heading in the exact same direction, getting paid to do a job I hated to continue living, doing a job I hated. What was the point of all this?

The more I had thought about living a life of travel, freedom and making my own mark on the world, the more my job started to become a torment. It wasn't really the people around me, the work itself or my home life that was making me unhappy, it was something much deeper within. As the months passed, the feeling started to burn even more intensely. I would look out the window of the tenth floor of the building and see the river below the skyline. People were jetskiiing, riding bikes, cruising on yachts or just soaking up the sun and there I was, sitting in a stuffy office cubicle, staring at a back lit screen under artificial light slowly waiting to get old, bald and fat just like the rest of my coworkers.

My health had already started taking a turn. I was diagnosed with sciatica which I assume was combining a recent gym injury with the fact I was sitting on my ass for 9 hours a day, 5 days a week not even including the weekends when I was probably still on my ass. I had only just turned 23 and I could already feel my body resembling that of a 55 year old. I was spending $100-$200 a week on a chiropractor to crack my back only to have to come back half a week later and do the exact same thing for what felt like just a few hours of relief. The pain was slowly getting unbearable until I came to the conclusion that I fucking hated my job.

This is not an original thought by any means, in fact a survey done back in 2013 on Gallup had discovered that just 13% of people are actually engaged or enjoy their job in the United States. Why is this? What makes us feel like our job is so bad that we lose all enthusiasm? Why do we keep doing a job we hate? The answer to the latter is pretty obvious, we need the money right? For what purpose though? We feel as though we need to fund our lifestyle which has become so miserable that we sacrifice our own health which then needs to be further funded to continue working that job we hate so much. To me this makes very little sense but most people wouldn't think about it this way. We are so paralyzed by fear that we don't want to step out from the boundaries of the box we put ourselves in because we don't know what is on the other side.

Let's use a little example. If we were quit our job we hate so much tomorrow and have no source of income, let's say we would be able to survive for just one month based on our current savings, this is worst case scenario. Knowing that we have very little time to live, what would we spend this time doing? If we enjoyed surfing so much that we vowed to spend every waking moment out on the waves as our possessions slowly disappear around us and we waste away, how would that feel? Pretty good, right? We would live the rest of our life doing exactly what we wanted, we wouldn't need to fund it. It would be a short life span but a worth while one, for us anyway. Of course this is an extreme example, it is incredibly unlikely you are going to die by quitting your job. But think for a moment what your job means for you. If it is just to keep you alive living a miserable existence than you are getting a pretty crappy deal and it might be time to take a risk.

For me that risk came in March of 2016. I decided that it was time to ditch the job and start making my own way. I had no idea what I would do or where I would end up but I decided I would much rather live on a rollarcoaster than on a train going back and forth on the same route every single day. This was well over a year ago and I didn't die or waste away. My possessions weren't taking away from me and I didn't end up on the streets. I am living a far more happy existence, doing something I love, living the life that I had dreamt of just 18 months ago.

We hate our jobs because we know there is something we are missing out on. We know there is an alternative that we should be doing which would bring us far more joy and pleasure. Our job then becomes a prison, keeping us from doing what we feel is our true purpose and this manifests suffering, illness, stress and depression. The options you are these: You can either put your whole heart into your job, make it the focus of your life that brings you joy or you can quit. You can resign and find that which brings you the joy and focus your efforts on making it work. It won't be easy, it never is. But the life you create around what you love is far better lived than a life that only sustains your misery. Think about where you are right now, make the right decision, you know the truth, perhaps it is time to come aboard the rollercoaster.

- Zeydo