In this consumerism society, it’s easy to get trapped in trivial activities that are helping little or not helping at all on the plans to achieve our goals.

It’s clear that there are two main reasons for people to work: satisfy their needs and for enjoyment.

Satisfy their needs

We all need to eat, have a shelter, and wear clothes, as the 3 basic needs; however, this is only to survive, to remain alive: Just breathing! So, is this the purpose of living? The answer is obviously no!

Here is where satisfying the other needs plays its role. We also need to care for our health, exercise, travel, share precious moments with family and friends, study, support charitable initiatives, buy some fancy stuff for our family (and many people also buy what they don’t need to show off to people they don’t even know), and many other needs that humans are constantly trying to satisfy.

So, how to satisfy our needs? Well, it’s quite simple: Working!

The easiest way is to find a fixed job (normally 9 to 5), following a schedule, receiving orders from a boss (even if you don’t agree you have to obey), receiving a fixed salary, doing routine tasks and letting the days to pass without hope for changes.

This scenario is applicable for many people around the world. But what to do?

Well, nothing will change automatically, overnight or by magic. You have to make the changes, nobody else!

When I talk to friends and acquaintances, some of them provide this reasoning for not quitting their fixed jobs:

• I have a family to feed
• My children must go to university
• I have to pay my mortgage
• I would like to travel, so money is needed
• I am not happy but have no other options
• It’s hard to find another job
• This is better than nothing

Undoubtedly, those are valid reasons and that’s why there are many individuals who consider this situation is the perfect representation of their realities.

It’s not an easy task and we all need assistance from others who have lived the same situation but were able to change it. I was one of them and wanted to share my perspective.

Some tips I have effectively punt into practice are:

• If you cannot quit your job now, try to enjoy it as much as possible by changing your way of thinking. Be grateful for your current job!
• Don’t complaint for anything! I think we have the right to disagree about something but complaining is not the solution. When somebody makes us uncomfortable, try to analyze why this person is behaving in such a way and you will find a sort of relief to address the issue. Remember that only mentally-perturbed people cause damage to others on purpose.
• Wake up by thanking for your what you have: Your health, family, the ability to seize a new day and many other wonders
• Plan the shift. Start reading more, learn a new skill, learn from others because we see what we want to see

Most of us spend our time being busy and proudly state, “we are working!” when in fact we are just being occupied by carrying out monotonous tasks that we don’t enjoy but have to do because of “necessity”.

As mentioned before, this is not going to happen overnight. You need to carefully assess if you are eager to make drastic changes to your rooted ineffective habits and to start a new life. The key is to use our time wisely as spending 8 hours in an office doesn’t say much about our progress if we don’t enjoy what we do. Conversely, we can spend 3 hours to do activities that indeed nurturing our real goals.

For enjoyment

Once we are engaged in activities that take most of our time but with extreme delight, we can work with enjoyment. That necessarily implies our basic needs are totally satisfied and therefore, we can devote our endeavors to explore new adventures that allow us finding purpose in life.

Despite only few people have reached this status, that possibility exists out there for us to grab it as well. It entirely depends on us, by making a firm decision, create a definite plan, take actions to transform it into concrete facts and acquire an invulnerable shell to protect ourselves from all the vicissitudes inherent to this process of achieving enjoyment, and that we have to overcome with paramount resilience.

Bottom line

The ultimate goal is to be able to say, “I’m actually enjoying working”.

If you have some experiences or opinions in this regard, please share them on the comments below, so we can all learn from each other.

• Do you feel confident to say, “I’m actually enjoying working?”
• Why do you have a fixed Job?
• Do you feel satisfied with your job?
• Are you busy or working?
• How do you deal with monotony at your work place?