Are You Trading Your Life For A Paycheck?
I know many people will feel offended, but what I'm about to say is simply the truth.
There's a saying: "A salary is the price they pay you to forget about your dreams," and I can assure you, it’s often true. After receiving their first paycheck, 99% of people completely forget their dreams, as if they never had any.
Most people working a 9-to-5 job fall into the cycle of wishing for the workday to end, for the week to pass, and for the month to finish so they can receive their next paycheck. But in doing so, they forget that this time is their life.
I can't imagine anything worse than someone wishing their life away. It’s often subtle—you’re going through the days, hoping for each one, then each week, then each month, to be over.
There’s an Arabic proverb that says, "You are just a few days; whenever a day passes, a part of you passes with it." The very day you wish away so you can go home is a piece of your life that you’ll never get back.
Now, I know some people will feel defensive, but let me say first that I also have a full-time job. This isn’t about whether or not you have a fixed job; it’s about your attitude toward it.
If you’re eager to learn more about your work, aiming to become an expert, avoiding gossip, fully living in the moment instead of just surviving it, constantly making progress both in your job and outside of it—if you’re exercising, developing yourself—then you’re on the right track.
If you’re not doing these things, then your time is slipping away to the job. If you don’t go to bed every day knowing something new or improving in some way, you’re exchanging your time merely for a paycheck.
I have hundreds of colleagues at work; most of them simply wish the time would pass. They have no other activities, no purpose, and no goals. I believe I’m the exact opposite, even though we all share the same job.
A fixed job isn’t the problem; it’s how we approach it.
I never heard of that expression. Who are they and where is it they live? With us they say that the best thing you can do is having your hobby as a job this way you will have fun. Is it necessary? I don't think so since we can also be very skilled in what we like less and it's not a shame or waste to use it to lay hands on that paycheck. Most important is to not take your job home and let work be work and private be private which is the hardest thing to do for those working from home. If we may believe the data homeworkers work way harder than those going to the office.
I could agree with most of what you've said. It also highly depends on the kind of job we're discussing, but for 80% of jobs where you just trade your time for money, a salary is just again the price an employer pays to forget about your dreams of having your own business someday. I've tried working in some of the most demanding jobs where a human and a machine are equally equal. I've also been through jobs where you're highly appreciated. A lot of it has to do with the kind of job I'd say
What if it has to do with you? I mean the way you see, promote and sell your skills? Except for two cases I always had great jobs, totally different once and what I didn't accept was they lied about my income. So I left to my office, called a job centre and they had a job but said I could do more blah blah, I accepted it, packed my bag and left immediately. I did not even finish that day. I don't like to be fooled. If I agree and sign for certain conditions I don't like to be treated like an idiot (btw I was asked to replace the director with a burnout).
I believe you did the right thing leaving immediately and not wasting one more day with that one. I'm sure a great part of it has to do with me as a person, but also what you mentioned is a great part of it, when you're dealt with as if you're "an idiot" or like you simply don't matter, or like you have no other life apart from your job and you're expected to work all day. Again I know it varies depending on the kind of job, the line of business, and many other variations.