What is the ideal job? Does the perfect job exist? If you don’t have an entrepreneurial streak, you need to choose the job you go after carefully, because work takes up a large part of your life.
It doesn’t matter whether the working day is 6 hours or 10, because the reality is very different. If we look at it closely, work is present throughout our entire day.
On top of the time you spend there, you have to add the time it takes to get ready for work, get the car out, drive there and park, and, once the working day is over, the same routine in reverse. Not to mention the psychological side, which keeps us from enjoying our days because we have to go to work:
- I can’t stay up late, I have to get up early tomorrow.
- I can’t come with you, I’m finishing work late today.
- I have a fever, but I can’t miss work, because my contract ends in two days and if I don’t show up they won’t renew it.
- And so on, and so on…
Many people spend their whole lives in jobs that are a burden to them, and on top of that they don’t earn much money. They die having done nothing in life but work, their faces reflecting an utter lack of happiness, with only the hope that their children will find something better in the future: a job that gives them financial freedom.
Many parents teach their children to work and to be responsible at work, but forget to teach them how to make money.
Looked at carefully, a job is:
- 5 days of sacrifice for 2 days of rest (for those lucky enough to get them).
- 335 days looking forward to a month’s vacation to clear your head.
- A constant fear of being fired, or of the company doing badly.
- A constant struggle for a raise so you can achieve financial freedom (and in the end we wind up with more debt).
See also: A profitable business selling products that don’t exist: successful entrepreneurs
At some point along the way you have to choose between building up your boss’s company or fighting to build your own business.
Whatever you decide, there’s only one piece of advice that holds true in the search for the perfect job and the ideal line of work:
Think of something you’d be willing to do for the rest of your life, even if nobody paid you for it. Something you’re truly passionate about. Now find a way to make money from it.
Once that’s clear to you, your decision will be heading in a much better direction.
Further reading
- The mindset of an entrepreneur
- Have a business idea? How to make it happen
- How to start your own business with no money
- How to finance your business
Featured image: joiseyshowaa, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
