As with most of my work I combine making somewhat insightful remarks about the world illuminating how it works and then most importantly give actionable advice on what to do in view of this “illumination”. Too often I see sites that make insightful comments about the state of the world but then fail to provide actionable advice whereas others offer banal advice like “Go out and get it”, “work out”, etc. without putting those in the context of the world and society as a whole.
Hopefully I’m offering a halfway point that works well. But that is not what this article is about. This article is about why you hate your job and what to do about it. Let me start this off by saying depending on what stage of life you’re in will drastically change the applicability of this advice (and much advice out there. For example if you have a wife and kids you’re supporting then the advice is going to be applied on a different time frame than if you’re 26 and single. And that’s change depending on if your 26 and single with debt or without debt and so on and so forth.
But regardless over a long enough time frame everyone should be able to apply this advice and of course understand why it is needed in the first place. But before we get into all of that let’s take a moment to address why just about everyone hates their jobs and how we came to this in the first place. To do that we’ll have to take a look at history and biology among other things.
Men Are Not Insects (Don’t Tell A Modernist)
In an industrial capitalist society most people have been conditioned to think that hard work is the greatest evil that has ever existed and anything that lessens hard work is a good thing and anything that increased hard work is a bad thing. I know most corporate drones I’ve talked to (and when I was one) talk about how bad jobs used to be when you had to be *gasp* outside and had to use *double gasp* your hands and *triple gasp* sweated! And how lucky we were to be able to put in datasheets in a tiny screen all day in an air conditioned cell.
But the more I thought about this the more I thought it was bullshit. For one, everyone without exception at the mid and entry level hated their jobs and couldn’t wait to escape from them and needed numbing agents to keep from going crazy when they went back to the job and two I sought out hard work all of the time. For example boxing. I pay money to work harder then I ever worked on a lawn crew or landscaping for the privilege of being punched in the face by trained fighters. And any day at the gym is 100x better to a day at work.
So I figured its not the hard work that’s the bad thing. It is the lack of fulfillment that is the bad thing. Working hard for something that has a payoff (other than making a multinational corporation more effective which despite conservative protestations to the contrary I have yet to see fulfill anyone) that is personal and human is what is rewarding. I remember my grandfather talking to me about being a farmer and advice his father passed on to him.
We had been working on repairing a fence during the middle of the day and I was talking about how hot and tired I was. He told me a couple things. Number one to stop whining. But number two how there wasn’t any work in the world like farm work. To which I replied what do you mean? Plenty of jobs you can do where you sweat in the sun. To which he replied that there was nothing more fulfilling and how you’d always get a good nights sleep doing farm work, not just because of the hard work but because you were fulfilled and happy.
A lot of this transferring from human work to insect work took place in the transition of an agricultural society to an industrial society and now to a technological society. So essentially you have to de-evolution of man going from tribal hunting societies to agricultural societies to industrial societies to now technological societies. In each transition the humanness of man taking a blow (and the degradation of the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of man).
Crafts Vs. Jobs
I want to address another aspect of why your job makes you want to drive off a tall cliff here as well and that is the lack of crafts and the proliferation of jobs which ties into the whole insect vs human phenomenon. One hundred years ago your job meant something, your job description alone said something about you for example. Blacksmith, soldier, carpenter, farmer, and so on and so forth. Compared with modern jobs human resources, chief diversity enforcer, accounts receivable, director of first impressions, and so on and so forth.
Things that are so divorced from nature and humanity as to not make much sense. Imagine trying to explain to any human from one hundred years ago or more these job titles and their functions. Whereas with a craft there is refinement to it. You can get better at it and make your own personal stamp on it. Just like with art or fighting. Everyone has their own unique stamp whereas this is impossible with accounts receivable a job created for insects not man. There is no refinement of accounts receivable, sure you could become more effective and efficient but not develop it in a human way.
Obviously there are part of crafts that are drudgery but the difference is they also allow for human expression and development. Though Mike Tyson and Muhammed Ali are both boxers they have their own unique stamps on the sport. Likewise though Frank Frazetta and Norman Rockwell are both painters they have their own unique stamp. Bill and Bob from accounting do not. Granted jobs generally pay higher than crafts but there is something to be said for overall wellbeing as opposed to pure money. I know this is sacrilegious to say but it is the truth.
What To Do About It
Alright now that we’ve identified some of the causes let’s talk about some of the solutions. Now obviously not all (or really any) of us can just quit our jobs tomorrow and walk off and become artists, as nice as that would be. So there are a couple of things I recommend and freeing yourself from your soul crushing job is something that will take time and hard work. And that I would divide into a three step process. Depending on how dependent and tied down you are to your job will effect the time it takes to implement and profit from this.
The first thing is to start getting in income aside from your driving off a cliff job and actually I don’t necessarily recommend starting with whatever your passion is right away. Instead I recommend with high profit things while working on your passion job on the side, For example start learning copywriting or sales to eventually transfer into. If you make say 30-70k from your job this can be replaced by copywriting or sales within a year or two which will allow you to make more money much quicker freeing up your time to focus on your passion job.
Eventually the passion job will replace to quick money job and you’ll be able to live your life spending time with your family while writing your novels in the morning or whatever. Obviously there is a lot that goes into this (I do offer coaching if you want a step by step plan) but that’s the gist. Find a high paying quick money job (copywriting or sales my choice.) become proficient with it and use it to replace your mind numbing 9-5 job and work on your passion job on the side until it can sustain itself. It won’t happen overnight but its worth the investment.
If anything I said here interests you I’d highly recommend you check out The Ultimate Alpha Collection which is a compilation of 16 of my books for the price of 5. It covers everything from being a man to making money to getting the right mindset to getting girls to fighting and more and is a resource no man should be without. Pick up your copy today!
-Charles Sledge
