Live Life According To You - Think Outside The Box

I had a very interesting conversation with a family member over the Christmas holidays. He is older than me and currently retired.  Our conversation started about jobs, pensions, vacation time and medical benefits, things like that. I was telling him about all the wonderful things I get from my employer for my years of service and he in turn told me about all his.  I already knew about most of it because he is family and I was familiar with the company he had worked with and what they offered to their employees.

I told him all about my job and the things that annoy me about it. He proceeded to tell me that I just need to suck it up and deal with it because EVERYBODY hates their job!  It’s just a part of life. He went on to tell me he hated his job and wanted to quit repeatedly over the last 14 years he was employed but stuck with it because of the pension and of course, the money.  Typically his generation stayed at one job for the duration of their working careers but things have changed and will continue to change with the each generation.

I found his statement to be kind of sad.  Giving it even further thought, I felt that it’s even a wee bit close minded.  Just because that was the path you chose doesn’t mean it has to be your destiny. On one hand it’s just human nature we stay with what we know, what’s comfortable but on the other hand so many people stay in something they are not happy doing every day for a variety of reasons.  Whether that is the money, the benefits, the pension or just the fear of the being without those things I do understand it and why he made that statement.

It really drove some things home for me.  I am thankful for our conversation but why the fuck should ANYBODY stay and be miserable at their jobs if they really don’t have to?  Who says you have to? Fear dictates this to a certain degree but why stay stuck in that box? Why be miserable at something we spend over half our lives doing? We typically spend more of our lives at work then we do with our families at home. This miserable feeling/mood will undoubtedly spill over into multiple areas of our lives, right? Break out of that box people I urge you to do so if you are unhappy. Life is far too short to be unhappy. Don’t stay just because everyone else says it’s the right thing or the responsible thing to do! Follow your heart and do something out of the ordinary.  Think outside the box and helllllz yeah it will be scary and there will be times you will be paralyzed with fear but at the end of the day, aren’t YOU worth it?