Don't Work for the Weekend!
Yay! It's the weekend! No more bosses, no more office politics, no more TPS reports. Just sweet sweet freedom, usually from pants. You've ground it out all week long, being wrenched out of bed by your blaring alarm and fighting traffic only to do it again the next day. But now, during the weekend, you can finally take the time to be YOU! You can do those hobbies and catch up with your friends and family and sleep as long as your little heart desires.
Do you feel this way? Do you know lots of people that do? According to JT O'Donnell, the founder and CEO of WorkItDaily.com, over 70% of people dislike their jobs and can't wait to get through them and get to the weekend. Odds are, you fall into this category and experience it as normal. To me, this is a terrifying idea.
The Pursuit of Wonder YouTube channel crunched the numbers on what living for the weekend means, in terms of how much life we actually enjoy if that's our case. If the only enjoyment we get is on the weekend, instead of living for a decent 85 years, we end up only enjoying and being awake for 11 years of our adult lives. That's it. Would you only want to live for 11 years after college? That's like dying at age 32.
That's why the idea of living for the weekend seems so awful to me. I don't want to merely have 11 good years of life. I want to grab back as much of my time as possible. I want to live with maximum passion, maximum engagement, and maximum fulfillment. Doesn't that sound better than being miserable for 5 days out of 7?
There are ways out of this though. You don't have to become grist to the mill of a miserable 9-5 job. You can reclaim a huge chunk of your life. Here are three solutions that I've either done, or am working towards accomplishing.
#1. Find passions outside of work that you can do during the week. Develop your curiosities into skills. Find other people who love that too. Put your smartphone down and have real conversations with people instead of the cheap replica of interaction that Social Media gives us. Be present with your family, your friends, your church, or whatever community you can get great face to face interactions with. For me, that's music, chess, cooking, and helping people with their Personal Finance issues. You don't have to make money from this stuff, but that's OK too.
#2. Find a new job! Start talking to recruiters in your field. Contact old co-workers who are happy in their new gigs and see what they have at their company, let them know to keep you in mind when the next opening comes around. Be flexible as to your location and career, because maybe you need to change those things too. You never know if you will like a job until you try it. Let "The grass is always greener on the other side" help you for once by overcoming your natural fears and inertia.
#3. Pursue Financial Independence. If you bought enough income producing assets like stocks, bonds, and real estate that you didn't need the paycheck from your job, and you lowered your expenses enough to make that relatively quick and reasonable, you could just QUIT your job. Or, you could take a lower paying job that you would enjoy more, because your assets would fill in the gap in income. Or, with your newfound financial confidence, you could tell your boss that you will no longer do the parts of your job you hate, so that you can focus on the parts that you really care about. The number of stories I've heard from people who are Financially Independent and actually became much better at their jobs by doing this, and even ended up getting promotions due to their focus and enjoyment of their re-defined roles is truly inspiring. It is actually a thing people do!
Don't let your hatred for your job rob you of 40 years of life. Don't be miserable for the vast majority of your waking hours. We only get one life. Don't waste it.
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