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When I was younger I used to think people find their passion and they get the job they want and it is happily ever after. As I get older for most people, I find that people just find a job and they work to pay bills. Work is depressing and it can drain your soul. It is called work for a reason or else it would be called vacation. But does life have to be this way? I find my biggest source of frustration or depression is from finding a career. My parents are on my ass, I am on my ass, family relatives ask me what I am doing and their son is doing all of these things makes me feel bad, it is my main source of frustration atm. Other than that I actually enjoy my life. Health is good, despite the work issue my family is good, good friends. I just want to find my niche and be done with this period of my life. Anyone experience similar struggles? How do you cope?
Some people find their passion pretty easily; these are the ones who have known for a long time what they wanted to do and go for it...and end up getting into the field right after college. I don't know too many people like this.
I am one of the people who work to pay the bills. I've changed careers multiple times and have several degrees. Initially after high school I had a scholarship for pre-med but had to drop the program since my family needed my income full-time and I had tested high enough on a mechanical aptitude test to get into the factory my dad worked at as a machine set up person. Eh, I am okay with my job and glad that I have one but it's a job. My co-workers are fine, my boss is fine but it's not my passion. I'm there to do my best until I (inevitably) get bored and move on.
I think that it's relatively common for people to change careers at least once. I would seriously think about what you could be happy doing for an extended time period and work on training/education for that if needed. I don't think that life has to be a grind.
Stop comparing yourself to the other sons or allowing others to make you feel bad because you are still exploring where you "fit". There are no "right" answers to what you should do for a career; the only correct answer is one that fits your values and allows you to be successful in the way you define it.
Some people find their passion pretty easily; these are the ones who have known for a long time what they wanted to do and go for it...and end up getting into the field right after college. I don't know too many people like this.
I was 40 years old when I found my "passion" which was writing about a niche topic related to domestic architecture (Sears kit homes). I traveled throughout the country and gave lectures and had a great time. It was clearly The Thing™ that I was born to do, and I did it very well and made a name for myself.
In my travels, several folks told me that they were envious of me because I had found my purpose in life, and I found a vocation that brought me so much joy.
Thing was, I never made any money at it. I made enough to keep body and soul together, but I also had to take a part-time job writing ad copy so that I could pay the bills. I really, really hated that job.
By my mid-50s, that vocation had played out and after total immersion for 15 years, I was weary of the whole thing. At age 56, I suffered a tragedy that left me reeling. I'm now back to square one, trying to figure out what it is I am supposed to do.
My point is, sometimes it is not work that "drains your soul" (as you said in your post), but life. Life can be very hard.
Being poor is way worse than hating your job. Try a week standing at a stoplight holding a cardboard sign begging for money. It might give you a different perspective on how awful your job is.
Not only that, but just look at all the crappy jobs you come into contact with daily. Mail men, janitors, cafeteria workers, burger flippers, movie theater workers, mall workers, house keepers, etc.
I may not like my job all the time, but every now and then a different perspective makes things more clearer.
I used to flip burgers and serve soft drinks, while it's never good to get complacent, I don't have that much room to complain.
I like my current job but it doesn't define me. I have many, many other interests. There are others who revolve their life around work. That sounds depressing to me. If someone owns their own business I can better understand the merge between work and life itself. Otherwise you lose part of your soul if you view life exclusively through a work lens.
I may be wrong but reading between the lines I get the feeling the OP has not found a career yet and doesn't know what to pursue. Maybe they are just out of school and like many who have gone before, can't get a job because they don't have experience and can't get experience because they don't have a job. Many people go through this after graduating school without any fixed career goals, or after they find out that their goals no longer appeal to them. It's pretty natural. I worked part time in a liquor store for about 9 months after I left school. It hadn't occurred to me at the time but I could have strung a few part time jobs together to make a living wage. Instead I relocated to NYC to be in a better job market, and got a job within two weeks after arriving. Being broke, hungry and cold was a superb motivation to talk the interviewer into giving me the job. I worked for close to the next 20 years just to pay the bills, got married, had kids, bought a house. It was a job and although I never hated work, I did have some rough people and supervisors to deal with. One thing they don't teach in school is how to manage your boss, but it's an essential work skill you must figure out and develop. I had a boss that was out to get me and we bumped into each other at a bar employees frequented after work and we had a few drinks together and buried the hatchet. He said he would never help me but wouldn't stand in my way either. That was good enough. Then he gave me the most valuable piece of advice I had gotten up to that point in my life. He said "you can get pretty much everything you want in life, it just takes a lot longer to get than you want it to." The other great piece of advice I got was from a counselor at a work sponsored leadership course who told me I wasn't cut out to manage people, I needed to find a technical nitch that I was good at. It all came together for me at the age of 43 when I got a job as a computer systems administrator. It paid well and I loved the work and did it for the next 19 years until I retired. So both pieces of advice were 100% right on for me.
Not only that, but just look at all the crappy jobs you come into contact with daily. Mail men, janitors, cafeteria workers, burger flippers, movie theater workers, mall workers, house keepers, etc.
I may not like my job all the time, but every now and then a different perspective makes things more clearer.
I used to flip burgers and serve soft drinks, while it's never good to get complacent, I don't have that much room to complain.
Postal workers earn a pretty good living in many areas and generally have great benefits as well as job security, so I wouldn’t include that job under the “menial” or “crappy” jobs category. It’s a civil service job.
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