As adults, why do we keep settling for jobs that don’t make us happy? My father used to tell me that your job wasn’t supposed to make you happy, and for the lonegst time, I believed him. I kept pushing through jobs tryong to figure out if they make me happy or not. Then I would remember that my job wasn’t supposed to make me happy. So, I would settle into different possitions and be miserable because that is what I was supposed to do.
As I sat miserable at work, I would try harder and harder to fill my home life with things that made me happy. I found an amazing man who agreed to spend the rest of our lives together. Happy. That man came with the best bonus son anyone could ask for. Happy. My two kids have grown into resposible, mature young people. Happy. Rooster crows and duck quacks are my alarm clock. Happy. I get dog snuggles whenever I want them. Happy. I have FIVE goats. Happy. My homelife has made me happier than I could ever imagine. But, no matter how happy I am at home, I am still miserable at work.
For the past five years I have spent 40 to 50 hours a week sitting at a desk with minimal face to face interactions with people. I have become complacent, overweight, and miserable. It used to be only Monday mornings where I would be filled with anxiety, dredding to go to work. Now it’s every day. My complacency has caused me to faulter on my attention to detail and work ethic that I’ve always prided myself on. Despite all that, I keep pushing along.
About a month it hit me. I spend half my time at work and commuting. That means half of my life is spent in misery. Is this REALLY how it’s supposed to be? Was my dad really right in what he said? Am I really destined to be in a job I hate for the rest of my working career? I love my dad with all my heart, and he taught me some amazing life lessons, but I’m going to cal bull shit on this one. There is no way I am supposed to be miserable in my work. Therefore, I am going to do everything I can to change my current situation.
I have no idea what I am going to do, and I know it won’t happen over night, but I am going to get my shit together and find something I am passionate about. Maybe it will be working in retail again. Maybe it will be working in healthcare, dealing with patients. Maybe it will be wokring for myself. I have no idea. Whatever it is, I refuse to be miserable doing it. I need be working with people and having face to face interactions with clients. I need to be active. I need to be HAPPY at my job. I WILL be happy at my job. I am going to do what I love.
Mommy Undressed 
It is not the responsibility of your job or employer to make you happy, that much I believe. However, it is so much more enjoyable to go to a job that you love and/or a boss/employer that appreciates you and the work that you do for or with them. Follow your heart – whether it is to work for yourself, or take something that you wouldn’t think you would enjoy/could do – and it will lead you to EXACTLY where your are supposed to be!! Wishing you all the best!!
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I told my dad that I want going to be like him. I was going to find a job I liked. He laughed because he also thought that was impossible. I did find a job I liked. I gave it up to be closer to family but I managed to find another job I liked but then it became a job that made me depressed. Now I don’t have a job or depression.
It’s not impossible, but it also isn’t easy to find that job. Good luck!
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This is a COMMON dilemma for me. My job doesn’t make me unhappy, necessarily – though there are certainly times that I get stressed beyond what my talent for words can convey. But, for the most part, my job is a necessary thing to allow those things in my life which I “must do”… you know, stuff like keep my kids from starving and put a roof over their heads.
But I’d rather spend my time writing, or making music, or…well, doing something which, if it did pay, doesn’t pay as much as my job . . . and, even if it might, it wouldn’t be as steady. So I continue . . . and think, longingly, of a day where I *want* to do my job . . . rather than see my job as something to do before I go about living my life.
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