I have a few friends who don’t like their jobs. I mean REALLY. DON’T. LIKE. It seems like it would be really depressing to wake up in the morning and think, “Only 10 more years. I hope I can make it.”
Don’t get me wrong. When I get up in the morning, I think, “Only 10 more minutes. I’m sure I can still make it – maybe if I don’t eat breakfast.” But then I get up and go to work. Usually when my husband starts grumbling about me hitting the snooze button too many times. And some days it’s pretty great, and most days it’s good, and those days usually add up to enough to make me feel like I chose a pretty good career, thank goodness, because teaching stuffed animals wasn’t going to get me as far as I thought when I was five years old.
I read an article the other day about how to fall in love with a job you don’t like. At first I felt guilty. “Why am I reading this?” I thought. “I love my job already – don’t I?” And then I remembered that I do. (It’s totally normal to have to remind yourself of this every once in awhile. Trust me.) But I decided to keep reading so I could see if the advice might help my I. REALLY. DON’T. LIKE. MY. JOB. friends.
And then I had a revelation.
Guess who else gets up every morning and thinks, “Only 10 more years. I hope I can make it.” (If you are a grammar/punctuation Nazi, then perhaps you can tell me if I was supposed to put a question mark somewhere in there. And if so, where would it go?) Kids who hate school. For many kids, school is their job, and they REALLY. DON’T. LIKE.IT.
I scanned David G. Allan’s article again, this time with the perspective of a teacher who has a student who hates school. And I thought, “I. AM. A. GENIUS!” Because every suggestion in the article would probably really help a kid who hates school but has a teacher who wants to help him stop hating school. It’s all about reframing things. And, let’s face it – teachers are good at that.
So, whether you hate your job, know people who hate their jobs, or know kids who hate their going-to-school jobs which don’t even pay minimum wage, I highly recommend you read David G. Allan’s article, “Fall in Love with a Job You Don’t Even Like, In Three Steps.”
In conclusion, I admit that this was a slightly confusing blog post, somewhat stream of conscious-y, so let’s clear everything up with a short review before we do a formative assessment:
- I don’t not like my job.
- I am a genius.
- David G. Allan should be a teacher. Or fall in love with one. Or become a genius.
- D. All of the above.
