I have had a lot of career turmoil. Maybe that’s not so unique from anyone else. It can really seem you’re either on the track to prosperity or dead ends when it comes to jobs. The trouble is most of the time you don’t realize which track you’re on until the train is full speed headed towards the dark tunnel. If you’re lucky you are snug in one of those plush private cabins and not on the top of the train car looking for a place to duck.
In all my jobs I’ve been thankful for those paychecks. They are what has made it possible to take care of life and yet when I look back at my jobs there’s not a lot of happiness. There was lots of long hours and travel, crazy deadlines and the dynamics of bosses and team members that sometimes weren’t that much fun to be around. There were even some tears because of hurt, frustration, stress and even sometimes though rarely hard fought wins. All of it under the guise we were a team and winning together when in reality the only people who won were the company and senior leaders. I realize that sounds jaded.
I have always been one of those people who cares a lot about a job well done. I want to do my very best and fall in with the ones who believe hard work eventually pays off. The pay off I was always seeking was the security of knowing I would have a job when I did whatever miracle of impossibility was sitting on my desk. Sometimes it did pay off and more often than not it just mean more impossible miracles to pull off until you couldn’t win anymore. Then you were shucked off like a used racehorse whose glory days were quickly forgotten. The saying that our legend at work will fade as soon as they post the job is true.
The truth of it is I don’t believe there is good or even bad luck when it comes to our jobs. There is just jobs and most of us are trying to survive in those jobs for as long as we can so we can do things like take care of our families, save for a vacation and even retirement. Beyond that not many of us would declare our jobs as a source of fulfilment, satisfaction, contentment or even happiness. To me that is where the bad luck comes into the picture. We are not getting a return on our investment of time for many years of our life and it leaves us jaded, burned out, with health issues and just plain tired.
I realize the impact the endless bad luck jobs have caused on my health. I am mentally worn out, tired on the weekends and feel like I’m crawling with barely any energy. It is draining to think about Monday and relieving to feel Friday. Everything else in between I just pray goes by quickly and quietly with as little pain as possible. Does that sound like a job you have? Where we are just trying to get through the week and escape whatever the latest batch of drama in the office seems to be? Fulfilling right? Everyone should want to grow up and feel just like that!
So why then is it so crazy to think about doing something different and ending this bad luck? Why do we chew up and laugh at our friends selling a product on the side because they too are tired of the 9-5 crazy job scene? Is it because we are so soaked in the misery and bad luck of our own jobs that we can’t see how someone else can make this possible? It sure feels like that if you’re the one selling something in that situation.
I started a business like that. On top of the bad luck jobs I have in my career I sell essential oils and help people live more naturally. I do it because it is what has given me hope to see past the endless bad jobs and do something else in my life for work. It goes without saying we all have to work in our lives so if it is possible why not work at something that makes you happy? Why not give it a try to see where you can take it? Amazingly it makes the bad luck jobs seem less relevant and powerful to suck the living joy out of us on some days. For me it gave me a boost in moving out of the burn out and into something that actually supported my high creativity.
It isn’t clear to me where this concept of we must work for others and there is no escape from that came from. In surveys done about job satisfaction, Google any of them, you will see ranges of 60-80% of people report being unhappy in their job. WHY!? Why have we allowed this to occur and steal away our very energy to feeling our best in exchange for bad luck in the way of not being able to depend on a job to be there for us? It truly is maddening and I had had enough.
No, I have not officially quit the bad luck job scene (yet) but that day is coming. That day will also come before I’m old enough to retire too. When I realized how much of my life I was giving away for paychecks, jerk bosses, back-stabbing team members and non-dependable jobs, that was the day I decided I deserved better. I owed it to myself to change my job luck because I realized there wouldn’t be a dream job unless I created it myself.
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