I Hate Your Job

Like most people, you probably go through life on a pretty steady path from week to week. I know I don’t overhaul my personality or change the course of my life on a regular basis, and you probably don’t either. As reader Jack pointed out in a comment, “People do not put as much time into thinking about work(outside of work). And only realize they are unhappy after stopping and really thinking about where their lives have gone.”

There are some standard occasions for these moments of clarity and perspective he’s describing. At a funeral or a wedding, for example. How about that milestone birthday where you take inventory of your life (25, 30, 40, 50…)? Maybe it’s when you are humbled by reading about the latest person who is younger than you are doing what you’ve always dreamed of doing.

Well, keep reading—here comes a bit of self-reflection in blog format.

How have you spent your heartbeats so far? Where has your life gone? You only have so much of it, so you need to make wise choices, right? I’m sure you’ve heard the statistics about the many thousands of hours spent sleeping, watching TV, eating, traffic, showering, working and running errands that add up over a lifetime. You know the routine–if you stopped watching TV, you could write Moby Dick or paint the Mona Lisa. You already know that, so that’s not where I’m headed.

Even if you did write Moby Dick in your spare time, that’s only a small fraction of what you will be doing while you are living. The really memorable stuff usually happens relatively quickly. All your vacations and parties and the sunrises you watch and symphonies you attend and the soup kitchens that you volunteer at—that adds up to a drop in the bucket compared to the hours you spend on daily tasks like sleeping, working, eating, and showering.

When you take stock of how you spend your time, you should do it in two categories. The first is the special moments and events that you have had. Here’s where your sunrises, child-birth, and kayaking trips go. These are the spices of your life. Let’s say that if you live to be 75, you’ll get about 50,000 hours of really fantastic experiences like this.

The second part of the equation is all the other stuff. The standard and routine parts of your life. From age 20, that means you’ll have 270,000 hours that won’t be mind-blowing or special. Of those hours, more than 100,000 will be devoted to your job. That’s right. More than 100,000 of those hours will be devoted to your job. Thank about that. More than 100,000 of your waking hours in your life will be devoted to your job. You will be at work, on your way to work, or coming home from work. How does that make you feel?

Your job will be a huge part of the substance of your life. It’s no wonder that many of us define ourselves by our work. If those ideas make you feel uncomfortable, consider this:

Those 100,000 hours could be tolerated like a prison sentence. They could be hated like a slave-master. They could be loathed like a curse.

Or, those 100,000 hours could be enjoyed like a hobby, valued as a life’s work, and believe it or not, some of those hours might slide over toward becoming a special experience. You’ll make friends, you’ll have successes, you’ll create something special, you’ll do something important. You can find a job that suits your personality, interests, and abilities. You will be appreciated and you will feel good when you are doing the work that you were designed to do.

Other Posts You Might Enjoy:

• Personal Mission Statements: Way Cool
• The Big Lie About College: “The Best Four Years of Your Life”
• Intention vs. Impulse
• Are You a Sleep-Worker?
• About I Hate Your Job