Love Your Work or Don’t Work at All

[Canadian]

Love Your Work or Don’t Work at All
I just discovered this Pavlina article. I don't have anything to add to it, but I'd like to hear what others have to say about this.

If you don't want to read the article, the title gets the same point across.

[ZephyrusX]

I more or less agree. Doing work that you don't love will rot your soul, and even if you don't realize it, it is going to effect your productivity. You may try to get by doing the bare minimum. Your customer service may be poor as you are indifferent to customer needs. Your relations to coworkers may suffer as you are taking our your frustration and anger on them. I think it is beneficial for everyone if you agree to do work that you actually want to do.

Having said that, I know what it is like to work out of fear as I have and am doing it right now. I can come up with all kinds of rational reasons why I should at least stay where I am temporarily despite hating my job, but if i just cut out all the monkey chatter, my feelings are telling me to just leave.

And I probably should. Only, I know that it can take awhile to get a library job where I am living right now and I may have to go unemployed for a bit if I actually choose to leave my job. I'm not sure if I have enough savings to get by. It might be better than feeling this anger though.

I suppose the underlying implication is that we ought to live our lives doing what we love and not settle for anything else. If we waver or make compromises, we fall into a pattern of thought that legitimizes monotony, and indeed, I've met people who live much of their lives with this disempowering mindset. 'I have to do this!, 'I have to do that!', 'I have no power!', 'This is 'adult' life!'.

[newkaren]

I wish I had the guts to quit. If I were to quit I wouldn't even get unemployment.

I am working on some other sources of income so I can quit.

[garentee]

I love what I do.. absolutely. However it is very extremely challenging and sometimes I have a problem with seeing the negative sides of it.. Perhaps that is just what everybody has to deal with, I do not know. I would not trade what I do for my living, though some aspects I would like to change. Bottom line is no matter how bad other things may be in my life I can rest assured that about 80% of the time my career choice is the equivalent of bliss.. the other 20%? It can really suck. I do know how good I have it.. sometimes I just plain forget and get ranty about it.

[elucidate]

The good thing about doing a job you hate is that the dissatisfaction creates a drive in you to find something you do love, or create a business so you don't ever have to go back there.

That's what I'm in the process of right now. It's not happening as fast as I would like, but I can spend time feeling excited and grateful and all the feelings associated with finding something I love, and manifest that instead.

Being stuck forces you to get yourself out of the mess and where you are meant to be...so it's a good thing.

[freedomONE]

Thanks for posting this article, I came up with a great idea on what I need to Pursue.

[DANDUNGAN]

I don't understand what stops you from expressing what that is.

I don't know why I'm curious about it.

[JoeDRL]

Yeah it's a nice headline but in the end, the PERFECT job doesn't exists.
I mean, no job has only nice tasks to accomplish, there will always be some chores that you won't want to do.

But it's true that the more your job is fulfilling, the less it seems like work!

[nothuman]

For mine. Self employment is the key, not only to fullfillment but prosperity. There can be an real payback from jumping in the deep end. I've been self employed for years and as a result of wanting to 'back off' a bit the last 18 months have still managed to sustain myself financialy due to the business being established.
Personally I think we drew the short straw when they made up the rules regarding the whole work thing. But if you gotta do it you may as well make it as enjoyable as possible.

[OptimistPrime]

Originally Posted by JoeDRL

I mean, no job has only nice tasks to accomplish, there will always be some chores that you won't want to do.

If that's your belief, then that will be your reality.