What if Money was No Object?
“Ah Sure isn’t it a job” – If I hear it one more time:
Prepare for a rant.
How many people have grown up with the ideology:
- Go to School
- Go to College / Do an apprenticeship
- Get a job
- Get a mortgage
- Die
I’ve met so many people that are miserable in their jobs, they work 9-5 and live for the weekend. They look forward to those two days so much, that release on a Friday evening and going for a pints to get shitfaced and forget your troubles to the fear on a Sunday night for the oncoming week.
Rinse & Repeat.
It’s an existence most of us face, through no fault of our own – it’s the way the world wants us to act, the way the society we’ve created needs us to act.
Background:
When I graduated from DCU in 2012 with a Business Degree, I didn’t have a breeze what I wanted to do. I worked in hedge funds for a few months, hated every minute of it and went to work on a clay pigeon shooting range for a few months to figure my shit out ( I was aiming for the Olympics then so it made sense).
When I told my family I was quitting hedge funds, every one of them said the same “Are you mad?! Sure it’s a recession, you’re lucky to have a job”.
Lucky? Lucky to hate what I was doing, every single day? To dread getting out of bed and dragging my ass to the bus to sit at a desk to collect a wage to live a life I didn’t want? That didn’t make sense to me.
The funny thing was, when I quit and everyone saw how happy I was people were jealous of my freedom. I was earning a pittance but I didn’t need much. Those months were some of the best of my life so far, doing what I loved doing – day to day. Amazing.
Things changed and I started getting interested in technology so went to work in a start up in sales ( I love sales, it’s a game to me, I still work in sales), Manly Stuff came about to fill a hole I saw in Irish Men’s Lifestyle goods – it’s a side hustle for me but I love it and it gives me an outlet to rant like this :)
Anyway, that was a change in direction for a second in this article.
But that change in direction of taking that step towards a life I wanted and that one small step of quitting a job I hated was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
It amazes me when people are so miserable in their jobs that they keep doing them, I’m talking before you have commitments like a house to pay off, kids to feed etc. If you ask me, your twenties are the best time to screw up – you can screw up at any age and change direction, I’ve met many amazing people who have, but in your twenties you can do it plenty. Yes you should think about building a career but why one that you’re going to be miserable in?
The Parents Mantra:
“Ah sure aren’t you/they/she/he lucky to have a job at all.”
I’m sure all of our parents have done a lot for us and of course not everyone is walking the same path, some are luckier, some unluckier (‘luck’ is another post altogether). Our parents generation, I’m in my twenties so figure it out, grew up with the idea that if you work hard you’ll get what you want.
Teachers, painters and whoever else who might not earn a fortune could comfortably get a house and live a nice life. Imagine that these days? Teachers who work so hard start off on like €25K I think? Good luck getting a mortgage in Ireland.
The world has changed. There are more ways to make money and different ways to make a living, millionaires are made from Youtube, bloggers earning hundreds of thousands a month. You can say these are the lucky one’s but that’s just not true – there are no overnight successes, there’s years of hard graft before you get your moment in the sun.
What I’m getting at is why bother working a job you hate, spending most of your life doing something you hate, in order to live a life you don’t want to live? Now is the time to make the mistakes, figure out what you want to do with your life before it passes you by.
Life ain’t a dress rehearsal, this is your one shot at it. Live it.
Doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living in order to do things you don’t like doing… It’s madness!
Rant over for now, work to do :)
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