A sure source of job dissatisfaction

It would be great if we all could love the work we do. What a better world it would be if we all had wonderful jobs - where we get paid to have fun. However, work is work, and its principal role is to earn our living, not provide us with entertainment. We gain our sustenance at the sweat of our brow. It can't all be fun. It must be done, regardless of whether we like it.

We do have choices, though, and it is certainly refreshing to live in a free society that allows us the chance to go elsewhere when our jobs are not pleasant. In fact, doctors and psychologists would say that this may be the most advisable thing we can do. A dissatisfying or degrading job is a major source of stress, and many studies throughout the past few decades identify stress as a major factor in poor health. You cannot be a healthy person in spirit or body if you have to hold your breath most of every day.

I have left jobs before. When I've done so, there has always been a two-fold motive: on the one hand to escape, the other to embrace. The worst decisions I have made about job changes have come when I've let the need for escape take reign. Off I would go, sometimes finding a better job, to be sure - but sometimes marooning myself in a worse one. Had I stepped back and thought a bit more rationally, I would have done much better.

One lesson I take away from these experiences is to realize that the stories that were at play in my mind, whether or not they had foundation, had a way of taking me down hard. For example, there were key moments when I suffered from a sense of entitlement. I had 'earned' a satisfying, fun job at the point where I was - and if it wasn't given to me - if they didn't recognize me - I had the right to leave. Hadn't I "paid my dues," after all? Wasn't it time to "write my own ticket"? There were other times I assumed that objective business decisions were personal. When someone else got a top assignment, for example, I could assume it was because that person was better liked than I was, and that my boss was unfair to like that other person more. In fact, that person got the assignment simply because they were liked, period, and it had nothing at all to do with me, one way or the other. Also, suppose that someone else was better liked than I was. Does that make the boss wrong?

There are certainly times jobs are poor or unfair, and one should not just submit to that, especially in the amazingly diverse economy we experience here in the West. We live in a world of possibilities that is too easily missed as we cocoon ourselves in our small, self-made worlds, and we are worth the trouble of finding good situations for ourselves. Yet, it isn't always true that a better job can only be had outside the doors of our office. More importantly, if my experience is any indication, job satisfaction can be reduced significantly when we let those nagging, venomous voices in our heart tear us down. It's tough enough to bring yourself into a job every day, promising your boss productivity and results. It gets much worse when we are raging over unproven and bankrupt assumptions that exist only in our own minds.