In the movie A Bronx Tale, Sonny said it best, “the working man is a sucker”.
I’m not suggesting you take up a life of organized crime, but there is a better way to live your life than spending 40 plus years of 40 plus hours per week making someone else rich.
A recent gallup poll states that 85% of people hate their job. HATE! not dislike, not are dissatisfied or sometimes unhappy… HATE!
If you are like the majority of people who believe work sucks, there is only one way out. FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE. Or having enough money that you don’t have to work. Finding a different job is not good enough. In order to be truly free, you must have enough money so you never need to rely on someone else for money again.
What is Financial Independence
Financial Independence is simply having enough money to not NEED to work for it. Financial independence is not about sitting on a beach all day or sleeping late. It is about regaining the freedom to do what you want when you want. Many financially independent people continue to work. They simply do it on their terms. They choose to work on passion projects or things that make them happy. They interact with people they want to, not people they are forced to through their jobs.
Think about how many times a day at work you have negative interactions with people that you would otherwise not associate with. You do it because you have to. You need your job. You need the paycheck. When you are financially independent, you can choose to say no, I am not doing that. I have known millionaires that report to a job every day that pays them just over minimum wage. Not because they feel some sense of obligation, because they enjoy the work and the people they work with.
Why do we hate our jobs?
- BURNOUT: Employees continue to stay at sould crushing jobs because they fear they will not find another job. With the recent unemployment crisis, it is easy to see why. Staying at a job that you are not satisfied with for any length of time will eventually lead to burnout. Once you are burnt out, it is nearly impossible to recover and start over.
- Longer hours for less money: Yes, there is an unemployment issue in America. And yes employers have taken notice and taken advantage. Employers have squeezed compensation while concurrently raising expectations of its employers all the while telling you, you should be thankful you have a job.
- Devices and technology advances, AKA, the 24 hour work cycle: Advances in technology have made it easy for your employer to have 24 hour access to you. Emails, texts, phone calls, and reports come flowing in via smart phones, tablets and laptops at all hours of the day and night.
- Lack of appreciation: Your paycheck will only go so far in the area of feeling appreciated for the work you do. If you intrinsically know your job is meaningless, you won’t feel appreciated. If all you ever receive from your boss is negative feedback, it becomes hard to be motivated to do good work. A co-worker of mine once made a fantastic point that really stuck with me. He said “I have found that I get yelled at with the same frequency weather I work my ass off all day or slack off so why work hard?”
How do we get out once we are stuck
I worked for 25 years in the same place. I was unhappy for most of that time. In the end it was gaining my financial independence that allowed me to change my situation.
I did not quit and figure it out later. It was hard work and alot of sacrifice for what felt like an eternity to finally reach the point where I could walk away. But it was worth every sacrifice.
How did I do it? Simple, I made the decision that no matter what, I would continue to show up to work every day, work hard and deliver an honest days work in order to earn my paycheck. Once I received that check I was smart with how I spent it. I saved as much as I possibly could each check and invested it in dividend stocks, index funds, and growth stocks. Over time I watched my portfolio grow and the more it grew, the more excited I got to put more money in it. Saving became easier and I began to not miss the things I was spending that money on.
The closer I got to my goal, the easier it became to work hard. It never got easier to swallow some of the shit I was fed at work, but I never let it effect the effort I put in. I did not want to become lazy as a person regardless of how unmotivated I was to work hard for my job.
I know that may be hard to understand, but I kinda used my anger and bitterness towards my job as a motivational tool. Almost like I’ll show them. And in the end it felt wonderful to just walk away.
People are shocked when you do this. Co -workers will look at you in awe. Bosses will tell you you are being foolish. Don’t ever let anyone tell you how to feel or what to do. They don’t know how you feel or what drives you. Maybe for them it would be crazy to walk away from the job. Maybe they are happy their. I can promise you this though, once you reach your tipping point of unhappiness at work, it is damn near impossible to regain any passion for it.
Why I chose my path
I made the decision to suck it up and feel unfulfilled at work while I worked towards achieving my financial independence. I was getting paid a good salary with benefits and had put in a lot of years. It didn’t seem to make sense for me to start over and have to spend a longer number of years to reach the finish line. So I chose to be unhappy for a shorter period and leave sooner.
That may or may not be the right path for you, only you can decide. I can tell you this though, once you make a decision either way and commit to it, a weight will be lifted. If you are at a job right now and you find yourself every day saying to yourself Work sucks, or I hate this place or some derivative of these words, it is time to make a decision.
Good luck
Earl
Please check out the resources page for the tools I used to help me achieve my financial freedom. Most of the links on the resources page are affiliate links and we will both benefit if you use them. Click here to find out more about affiliate links