Career Apathy (Blog)

[Steve Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

Career Apathy

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina, Career Apathy

In dealing with such people, I often wish I could rip my heart out of my chest and stick it in their chest to give them the courage they need to get moving. But I’d never do that because it would make a real mess of my circulatory system, I’d die an agonizing death, and there’s no guarantee the other person is the same blood type as me.

Pfft, what sort of defeatist attitude is that, Steve?! If you really cared about helping people you'd find a way to make it work. I thought you had no fear of death and had relinquished egoic attachment to your physical body? Clearly you're just in it for the money.

Also, stop writing these "pie in the sky" articles about things you "woulda-shoulda-coulda" and get down to some practical stuff I can actually use. In other words, cough up your heart!



(I'm sorry guys, I had to... damn parody is 1337. )

[Aubyrne]

That was probably one of the top five entries I have ever read on the blog.

I know so many people who spend most of their free time trying desperately to forget what they did in their unfree time. Heck, at times that is exactly what I do. It is sometimes a difficult pattern to acknowledge, and Steve nailed it.

I think I responded to it so well because it made a very strong emotional appeal, especially by the use of strong imagery (i.e. "rip my heart out of my chest"), not just the usual Steve-style primarily and faultlessly logical appeal.

Leave it to Steve to make an emotional appeal in a logical way.

[greyman]

There is a lot of truth in the article, but what I find crucial is to look down inside trying to figure out what the fundamental problem is. Maybe the apathy is just a manifestation of some deeper problem, in which case just switching careers may not automatically solve it.

I remember that in the past I also did have some feelings of dissatisfaction about my job, but after identifying and then overcoming some internal problem (like for example insufficient work morale, attachment to my own ego, etc.), suddenly the dissatisfaction disappeared and everything seemed to be "just right".

[Lauxa]

People don't have to give up on after-work hours just because they don't like their jobs. They can have very active lives filled with community service, family responsibilities, church involvement, hobbies, travel, etc. While it would be better to be excited about their jobs, for many people a job is just a means to an end, the end being all these other outlets of expression.

[wolfgang]

I combat my work apathy by reading stevepavlina.com - is that ironic?

But otherwise - I could be happier and it's not the job it's my approach to work. It not the particular choice in my career, in other words.

Also if he apathy is due to a bad decision - it is supposednly better to deal with the bad decision and not just run from the job and think it would be more thrilling to be a starving rock star. We all need to deal with what is right in front of us or the next thing will be just antoher version of what is current.

Not every job gets to save the world and be glorious but one's attitude can.

[Andrew Brunelle]

Good article. Top notch. That whole analogy about taking your heart out of your chest...you might be right about suffering an agonizing death. I had a cousin who tried that back in the '80s and it did not end well. Anyway, looking forward to your next post. Blog on!

[Peek]

Interesting article in many ways.

Steve, your heart, you can keep it, and if you want to give it away, donate to Erin. She will keep it beating

Serious: Is there anybody who has the career s/he loves and falls into escapism, as described?

I thought I love what I do or I do what I love, but I escape a lot of evenings and mornings.... So where I'm I?

Mind Disturbing article...Must be good


Peek

[Natsu]

I feel totally identified with that post. At times.

I try to find my own career path in-between odd jobs, which my family doesn't like much. They want me to settle down, get a stable job, you know the tune. Whenever I find a temporary odd job to make ends meet, I'm always wanting my contract to end so I can go back to my drawings, my writings and my political stances. And the job goes OK as long as I know it's going to be over some day. When I have free time, however, I can't focus on one of my interests, and in the end I haven't managed yet to be a genius artist, a genius writer or a genius politician (still working on it, though). When money runs out, I go for a job again for a time. And whenever I find a job which has the possibility of being stable, I attract disgrace.

Honestly, I haven't managed to make the law of attraction work for the good, but for the bad, my goodness does it work! Basically, it makes my car crash down. When I'm focusing on my art, or working a temp job, everything goes fine. But whenever I get a job which threatens to be stable, and feel pressured by friends and family to keep it... I try to convince myself that I need the job, that I'm going to stay, that this last one isn't that bad, that it's going to be OK, I discipline myself into doing well on a work I don't like and I feel shackled to by family duty. Twice I managed to do so. Twice, I got a car breakdown that simply swept away all the money I had earned at the job (thrice, in fact). I don't believe in the law of attraction... but for bad things how well it works! It's practically automatic!

This second time I felt threatened to be stuck in a job I don't like (I'm still working here), I was specially careful with the car, so I wouldn't have economical problems with it. I disciplined myself into being overtly cautious so this time my not-wanting to do the job wouldn't interfere with my need of the paycheck. Well, the universe took care of things in the shape of a gas-station worker who put gasoline in my diesel engine. The price of the repairs is going to be otrageous, and the whole motor is practically destroyed, because coincidentally, I filled it when it was almost empty. Something I never do.These coincidences... Repairs are going to cost like three month's wages. I never believed in the law of attraction, but sometimes I feel the universe slaps me when it thinks I'm not doing things correctly. The car got broken after the gasoline incident. I got it out of the repairing shop yesterday, and three hours after, it wouldn't work and the engine smoked. And very next thing I see after the breakdown van carries me home, is Steve's post. Yeah, it can be a coincidence. Another one to the list. But I can't ignore coincidences when they cost money, I need those damn euros to pay the bills... And this time it wasn't subconscious boycott, unless I am a subconscious telepath and sent waves of need for failure to the gas station worker. Which would be most cool if it wasn't that expensive. Argh.

I just wonder why it works for bad things and not for the good ones. I've been told that I shouldn't try to do drawings, writings and politics all at once. That I should choose ONE career choice. Point is, I don't want to. I mean, choosing one career and closing the door to the other activities I enjoy and feel right doing feels so disempowering and wrong. Why can't one have three careers at once? It's not like Leonardo was a specialist, either... Sorry, this post is not about law of attraction, but about wrong career choices.

Anyway... For some reason I never get to the state of apathy when I try to dumbforce myself into an unfulfilling career. I just get angsty, unhappy, depressed... and kicked in the ass by either fortune, fate, destiny or the universe, whatever. I just wish the universe would be more helpful about what I want to do... Maybe it just doesn't allow betrayals for the sake of the mortgage.

Bah, don't pay me much attention. Maybe it's just coincidence. I don't hate this job that much. I can do some drawings and get paid for it... still, supposedly, if I could stay fifty years working here I should count myself lucky, everyone says. And yet the prospect of spending three more years here gives me shudders... to think of retiring in this job is scary. I sometimes feel like screaming "I want out!" So I must be doing something wrong.

[mahreenferdous]

What should one do if one feels that someone else is in this trap of an unfulfilled career and is suffering from apathy? Is there a way of making them realize their situation without offending or hurting them?

[cdn2wheeler]

Originally Posted by mahreenferdous

What should one do if one feels that someone else is in this trap of an unfulfilled career and is suffering from apathy? Is there a way of making them realize their situation without offending or hurting them?

Very good question.

Best you can probably do in that situation is to point the person in the direction where they might find information and opportunities to get out of their current situation. Ultimately, the decision has to be theirs.

[Ilya]

Originally Posted by Peek

Serious: Is there anybody who has the career s/he loves and falls into escapism, as described?

It can happen. My first job was a dream for me. I loved it. However the job comes not only with things you do, but with the environment bundled together. And that can be dire. So you might get the career apathy despite the fact you love it. The very things that you do becomes the way to escape reality. Especially if you job is video-game developer as it was for me. Because of love I managed to cope for a long time .

The only positive outcome of that job is that I don't like to play video-games anymore.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Natsu

Bah, don't pay me much attention. Maybe it's just coincidence. I don't hate this job that much. I can do some drawings and get paid for it... still, supposedly, if I could stay fifty years working here I should count myself lucky, everyone says. And yet the prospect of spending three more years here gives me shudders... to think of retiring in this job is scary. I sometimes feel like screaming "I want out!" So I must be doing something wrong.

You were speaking your truth up until that last paragraph. You're experiencing a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10, trying to convince yourself that it's really a 7 and that maybe a 7 isn't so bad. Better to accept a 1 as a 1 and then focus on building the strength and courage to go after the 9 or 10 you really want.

It's great you're experiencing setbacks on the wrong path -- that's far better than going numb. The setbacks will continue to occur until you start cooperating with your higher purpose instead of fighting/ignoring it. The more setbacks you have, the stronger and clearer your desire for what you want will become.

You might find some of the concepts in this older article helpful:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...rker-syndrome/

And of course your situation is very similar to the one in this article:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles...onsciously.htm

[doriette]

This post was amazingly written.

This morning, on my commute to work, I read through my backlog of blog posts, printed straight from my RSS feed. I started with Do You Have a Deeply Fulfilling Career?, and read through Career Apathy in one shot.

Well! This entry in particular hit all the right buttons. As in I was sitting on the train, and I started to cry. (How's that for zipping through the levels of consciousness scale?)

Then, just after the tears started, I began to laugh in response to the wonderful imagery of a literal heart wrenching.

The timing was ideal.

It's a very compelling argument, and I may have finally been, well, compelled.

(And I'm definitely going to re-read The Courage to Live Consciously. It's been too long since I did it last. Thanks for the reminder, Steve.)

[Natsu]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

You were speaking your truth up until that last paragraph. You're experiencing a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10, trying to convince yourself that it's really a 7 and that maybe a 7 isn't so bad. Better to accept a 1 as a 1 and then focus on building the strength and courage to go after the 9 or 10 you really want.

Problem is, if money doesn't start appearing when I'm not working, I get pressure from family and friends (husband, both sides of the family) to get "stabilized", to get "normal". I've never listened to violent peer pressure, but I never realized how strong the pressure can be when it comes from people who actually love you and mean the best for you. If someone tried to convince me that my trousers were nasty at school, ten kids insulting me wouldn't remotely convince me that they were right. But people who really care about me manage to get me down. I feel I am betraying them if I don't manage to make ends meet. It's because I care for them. Maybe I'm focusing my love for them in the wrong way. And I feel also guilty for my boss, he's been training me for a time and if I leave all that time will be wasted.

I wrote that last "it's not that bad sentence" out of guilt, I think. I mean, saying "I'm quitting my job because law of attraction wants me to" isn't something that feels right. Or won't sound right if you try to explain it. Problem is... I didn't remember when I wrote my first post, but there was a fourth case. I tried to be an insurance commercial once. Day I had to start I fell and sprained my ankle bad. It got plastered for fifteen days, so I had to leave the job. Thinking I actually attracted one car crash, one extremely painful injure, and two heavy car problems makes me think I'm sometimes crazy, just admitting I caused such trouble to my family and my economy makes me feel guilty. I wouldn't cause such losses and trouble on purpose.

That's when you say I have the responsibility, whether I want to admit it or not. I guess ignoring one's power is like letting a child with a tantrum play with dinamite. It's going to be there, whether you want it or not. I want my family to be happy and I want to help with their financial susteinance, but I guess making myself unhappy ever after isn't the answer. I just don't dare admit it because I fear failure.

When I said my new job wasn't that bad, I really meant it: the previous two were 0 and -1 in every human scale. This one's a 2, it has creative input, uses all my strenghts (administration, English and arts), and actually includes creative work. I guess I'm scared of leaving this one because, as far as jobs are, they just don't get better than this one. Still, it feels like a trap. Still, the "Am I going to stay here for years?" is pounding in my head for at least six of every eight hours I spend there. Not the best ratio, indeed. Slightly better than before, maybe that's why I'm even more scared of losing this one. The reasoning is, "if I lose this one and I fail, whatever comes next will be worse".

I am so glad I asked here. That sentence was weighing inside me, until I opened the first link you gave me and read Hellen Keller's "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure."

Well, things are getting better at my intention-manifestation world. I've found your post exactly at the time I needed it the most, and your answer. I guess things are getting better. Now it's just creating possitive feelings. At least I know how strong they have to be to work.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

It's great you're experiencing setbacks on the wrong path -- that's far better than going numb. The setbacks will continue to occur until you start cooperating with your higher purpose instead of fighting/ignoring it. The more setbacks you have, the stronger and clearer your desire for what you want will become.

I can count myself lucky, then! I feel so happy now. Resigning next Monday. By the way, the universe game me a needed push making my boss ask me to have an impossible schedule, so family actually wants me to quit. Geez, I must learn to get this results for the possitive side. I must be as happy and hopeful and yearning for what I'll do, as strongly as I was unhappy and desperate and fearing the time to go to work before. I guess I've learned something from this. And funny thing is, in the end things sorted themselves out. The car will move again (wasn't that badly damaged), family has suddenly chose not to pressure me into taking certain jobs... And only thing I did was feel awfully bad. I'll start practicing feeling awfully well, and check out the results!

Thank you very much for the links. It is the first time I feel a good sinchronicity happen, strong and clear. So far, it's only been the bad ones. I so much needed to read that "Safety is mostly a superstition". I had forgotten.

[KeithHandy]

I relate to a lot of what Natsu is posting here. Is it not possible to have a job which has a symbiotic yin-yang relationship with our creative home life, instead of sucking energy from it, at least until the day comes when our labor of love starts turning into actual dollars and cents?

And couldn't the universe say, "okay, you're creating a workable balance here, and making great progress at home, so I'll stop sabotaging your car"?

[Steve Pavlina]

Yin-yang balance doesn't mean having some of what you don't want mixed with some of what you do want.

Balance is a noble concept, but I think the right balance is a balance of many different things that you do want.

So enjoy your work tremendously, but also enjoy your off hours tremendously. Life works pretty well this way.

Even when you love your work and your family, there will be some off days, but if off days on either side become the default, that's a bit of a problem.

I was just reviewing Dr. Wayne Dyer's book Inspiration where he wrote that it's been years since he can recall a day where he felt totally uninspired. I think that's a great outcome to aim for.

Creating an inspired life can be a real challenge, but it's a worthwhile one.

[Elainemarley]

Hi all, this is my first post in the forums. I apologize for my bad english, it's been too long since I last practiced it.
I've read Steve's blog for a while now and find some of the articles just absolutely clever. Some of them quite inspirational for my own life. But this one was just a bullet to my heart. I'll explain myself.

I'm a 22 year old architect student and I live in Spain. I'll give you some more background: I've never known what I wanted to study, which my career would be or what I wanted to do as a job. I didn't know what I was good at. I liked writing, I liked drawing, I liked thinking, photography, computers, reading... But I didn't feel like I was good at any of my skills. I wanted to do something creative, I felt it in my inside, but I somehow knew that I wasn't going to be as good as some other people I knew at it. I wasn't a bad student, but I didn't study much.

Then I decided to go for architecture. It thought it was going to be dificult but I would like it. I still don't know I made the right choice, because If I give it up I don't know what I would do know instead of it.

I started my first year and after a few months at university my father died. He was the one that was there to male sure that I did the right thing. From then on I was free to decide what I'd do, make my choices with no one interfering. My mom would never ask me to study if was watching the tv or playing games. I started going out with a boy on a long-term relashionship for the first time and that was the only thing I wanted to do. The first four years at university where almost useless for me as a student and I got a routine of not going to class when I felt I didn't want to.

Now I got a job at one of my teacher's office. At first it was awesome. I was doing real architecture and learning a lot. However I feel guilty because I think I'm not right for the job because I've learned so little from my classes. That is making me bad at work and my boss is starting to br aware of it.

I don't know what I want to do with my life. I feel useless and trapped. I'm happy with my boyfriend, I really love him. I love spending my time with him. There are other things that make me feel good. I have a blog (wich I have recently abandoned) and I started to learn CSS and HTML by myself. I did a bit of my boss' website as part of my job. Still I don't feel I'm good at it, no one thaught me what I know now and I still have a lot to learn. I like doing many things I'm not doing. When I go home back from work I don't want to do anything. I just sit on my mac and play world of warcraft. I like it to, I have friends there and I have fun, and my boyfriends plays it too. But I don't do anything else. I don't blog, I don't study, I don't go out with friends... I only go to my boyfriend's house and play WoW there or I'm just with him. He broke his arm recently and he's not in the mood of going out too much.

It's not like I'm depressed or something, because I feel quite happy for what I have. I just feel guilty that I'm wasting beautiful years of my life doing nothing and I'm getting used to it. I feel like I have no strength to make the move and go out from the pit I've thrown myself into. And I'm quite aware of that, and that makes my feel worse.

Look at me, I'm here, writing this in a forum waiting for someone I don't know and who doesn't know me to give me the answer and tell me what to do. Because I can't do it by myself and being aware of my problem it's driving me nuts.

[Laranja]

Originally Posted by Natsu

When I said my new job wasn't that bad, I really meant it: the previous two were 0 and -1 in every human scale. This one's a 2, it has creative input, uses all my strenghts (administration, English and arts), and actually includes creative work. I guess I'm scared of leaving this one because, as far as jobs are, they just don't get better than this one. Still, it feels like a trap. Still, the "Am I going to stay here for years?" is pounding in my head for at least six of every eight hours I spend there.

Let me help on this.

What we have here is a problem on a strategic level. Nothing more.

So what kind of strategy you can use to win this game?

Let me suggest on possibility. This is meant as inspiration, I hope in the end you will discover your own "moves". But let's get started.

First, do your level-2 job as awesome as you can. This gives you time to find your true path. It also calms down the unnecessary battlecries in your family life. And your boss gets something in return.

Step two is: you start to build your dream-career. Whatever it is. Somehow you will start with learning. Then you will advance it as a side issue. And finally you go full-time.

Then, and only then you will be ready to quit level-2 job without fear and guilt. Make an offer to your boss that you feel is fair game for both of you.

This can be many solutions.

Examples:

a) You train your sucessor in level-2 job for a year or so to get her at your level of doing the job. You get some form of financial reward for that.

b) You develop your level-2 job into a side business. First, you will do this work, later you train somebody else while getting more such business in your area and so on.

c) You keep your level-2 job and your true path job as a side-business. Arange with your boss. Maybe he can hire somebody else part-time. So you become a team.

I think all of my suggestions are pathetic and not very creative. But they are simple solutions that work anyway. I am sure you'll find something better. Just get going...

Keep in mind: this is only a strategic puzzle. No big deal. Be courageous!

[Natsu]

Originally Posted by Laranja

a) You train your sucessor in level-2 job for a year or so to get her at your level of doing the job. You get some form of financial reward for that.

That's funny, I started doing that exactly today. See. I don't want to stay in this job. But my boss is a really good man, very understanding. Though the best of him is that he's following his dream, he's working for a purpose. He's creating a new glass art academy (there is none in the Southern half of Spain). I prefer this job to any of the others because at least I'm working for a purpose. Only problem is, it's not my purpose. Still, far better, far more creative than any of the previous ones. So I just contacted a girl who works in stained glass and is also a teacher, and needs a three month contract. If she knows advanced english and a little bit of Office, she can take my job. In fact, as she is a glass-art teacher, she can probably be a better asset to my boss than even I am. So that would solve everything. I'm staying in this job until december, and then I'm quitting and recommending this other girl to my boss. I'll train her myself, and then leave.

In the meanwhile, I'm working in preparing my website with a portfolio of my illustrations. Your advice was really good, I think: I was already planning to do exactly the same. ;-)

About the abilities needed... if it's about illustration and writing, I think I have managed to develop them prettily in the last three years. Now I have to develop the self-discipline to learn other necessary skills to make myself well-known (web designing, basically). But anything that is not doing the big jump is stagnation from this point on. There was a time when I was sad and depressed because I thought I wasn't good enough at my art. Now I feel depressed because I'm not getting paid for my art. Not that I'm great yet (still working on it), but I am good, and possibly good enough. And as long as it's good enough, I have to try for it.

As for my family... I'll have to do serious talks with them to explain what I'm going to do. They may not like it, but they have to understand, specially my husband. I supported him hard when he wanted to achive his first dream: a big house. Now I will ask him to support me. It's now or never. (Well, knowing my astounding ability to tell the universe I am dissatisfied, it is trying now or having another accident or illness and trying later with less money. So I better make up my mind to save as much as I can this December, and try to fly this January. It is settled. I hope I get family support because if I don't get family support I'm getting family anger. I'm not complying this time. I know it won't work, it never does.