I Can’t Get No Satisfaction

04Oct07

When you have time to create a blog and actually type an entry while at work, it may be time to change jobs. At least, that’s what I’m thinking. I could have called this blog Atrophy, but that’s just too depressing, and the point of this is to prevent my brain from atrophying.

Why is this so common? Why do so many of us work in jobs we dislike or even hate; why do we resign ourselves to spending 8 hours of our day – all the productive hours – unhappily slogging it? I think it’s because we’re programmed to, conditioned to: we think the right thing, the smart thing, to do is go to university to get a good job, but then all we end up with is a whack of debt we’re trying to pay off with a job that is usually unrelated to what we studied. It takes a painful amount of time for us to accept that this may not be the way to what we all want; that is, financial freedom to be able to live the lives we covet. It’s the unhappy but comfortable way.

Working at a library, I’ve come across an incredible amount of books with thirty-something-year-old protagonists who work at deadend office jobs (mostly publishing or corporate), who hide in the bathrooms for hours (somehow without being noticed), surreptitiously drink at work, have wicked bosses, make crap pay, who show up for work late or rarely, or else super early and leave sickeningly late, who have shitty relationships, ad nauseum, and finally become utterly and depressingly apathetic, until finally one day they see the light because everything has come to a not-so-happy almost ending: the author has decided the guy still doesn’t get the girl, will get fired from his job, and will realize shortly this moral: if we don’t change ourselves, nothing will actually change. We read these books because we can relate, and because for the most part the subject matter is dealt with humourously.

Generally, people write about what they know. I know the above myself. I’m thirty-something (33), have a deadend job, and although I’ve realized there is something more to be had from my life (there must be), I haven’t a damn clue what that is yet. Still. I used to have dreams of what I wanted to be and do. Now it’s more who I want to be because I know that what I do doesn’t necessarily define who I am. (And I don’t want it to right now!) So while I’m trying to self-improve, a process that’s stressful enough to often bring me to tears, I’m also wondering what it is I’m happily going to be doing with my improved self.

I’ve watched The Secret several times and read all kinds of motivational articles. I’ve heard people who’ve got their lives on track. Our shelves at home are lined with life-changing books. But I’m still waiting for my “aha moment,” as Oprah would say. And I’m getting bloody impatient. I know that I should perhaps let go instead of trying to control my major change in life, not worry about the “how” of things. But I can’t even put out there what I want, exactly. I don’t know what that is, except for vaguely: a house somewhere (with property for our dog to run around), an occupation (but what?) I thoroughly enjoy and find stimulating and rewarding, and to be a confident, balanced, and healthy person. It sounds simple, but the problem is I can’t seem to believe I will ever have those things. And I think that’s why I don’t, but I don’t know why I believe that or how to change that belief! For now I guess I’ll just have to “sleep on it.”

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