Is this really so wrong?
From an L.A. Times article about college grads moving back in with their parents (see highlighted portion below):
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a professor at the University of Maryland in College Park and author of "Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road From the Late Teens Through the Twenties," says his studies of the generation have shown that they are "not spoiled and self-indulgent. Typically, kids who return home are working very hard. They're not lying around waiting for their parents to order pizza. They're often looking for jobs or employed in jobs that don't pay very well, so they can't live on their own. Many are going to school as well. I definitely don't subscribe to the theory that they're coddled adults."
But they do, he says, have very high expectations for work. "They don't want just a job. Even if it's a job that pays reasonably well. They want something more like a calling, that expresses their identities. This, Arnett allows, can make them seem spoiled to their parents, who often don't find their own jobs fulfilling and don't think that's a reasonable expectation.
(Emphasis added)
Is it so wrong to want a job which calls to you, which expresses your identity, which makes you smile (and doesn't give you worry line wrinkles) and which you never have ambivalence about discussing at cocktail parties?
I refuse to believe that it is.
The tautological argument so often put forth by the incurable miserable workaholic that "I don't want to love my job. That would only encourage me to spend more time there, and *I* aspire to have a life" is absolute crap. Yes, "loving" your job is dangerous because to use the word "love" in describing any endeavour means you will prioritize it above all else, and when you are juggling affection for an endeavour with an affection for people and the endeavour (more often than not) wins, something is wrong. See, e.g., CLC's ill-fated four year sham of a relationship with man who loved his work more than his GF (and told her so every day in choosing work first). However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to do something you find satisfying, that inspires, that lights you up. Work can (and should) be a friendly concept. A platonic relationship with work is fine. Abject misery, and a "I brought it on myself" attitude is not. Work should not be an abusive relationship.
The reality is this: Whether you love it or you hate it. Whether you are a part-time barista, a janitor, an astronaut, or the POTUS, you spend more time at work (some more than others) than at anything else you do. Don't you owe it to yourself and the people in your life which you care about to (at least try to) be happy (or as content as possible) for the majority of your waking hours?
As pie-in-the-sky as I may sound, I do acknowledge that, at the end of the day, everyone is governed by their economic realities and the basic needs for food, clothing and shelter (and payment of student loans). And I also realize, from my experience growing up (if not from my current lifestyle) that supporting one's family in these basic ways takes precedence over following one's bliss etc. My father has been doing a job he has hated for well over 25 years now. Growing up that was an undeniable truth. It pervaded my childhood home. It was, and still is, a pillar of my basic reality that my father hated his job and that it alternately made him exasperated, disconsolate, angry, and grumpy. And without fail, it always made him miserable. And I knew he did it every day. Day in and day out. Hating it all the while. The hatred of the endeavour creating an indomitable pressure within; the insistent cries and clinging hugs of his nearly half-dozen progeny maintaining a frenetic pressure without. Something had to give. But the kids needed braces, and clothes, and always had ear infections and school trip costs. And the job was always there. And he hated it. But it paid the bills. More or less. Always just barely getting by. No relief in sight - at home, at work, at the end of the month sitting staring at the check book. Willing there to be more primary numbers in front of the zeros. Something had to give. But he is the responsible one. The little ones depending, needing, wanting. They couldn't help it. But they never stopped. Never understood. Always wanted more. And so back to work. Day after day. They need. They want. And so, back to work. To provide. To provide. But something had to give.
And it did.
He never snapped. He did not run away from home. He did not quit his job. He did not become intemperate or uncontrollable. He just became sad. And unhappy. And he lost the energy to hide it. He knew he loved his children too much to run off and join the circus, to be a beach bum, or jump out of airplanes. Chasing dreams would have to wait, food needed to be put on the table. But something had to give. It was too much. It was so hard. And it made him hard. To his children, he seemed gruff. Always with an air of a gray cloud above his head. Sighs, always. He was the one charged with saying no. And the sadness. The sadness. It was always there.
I knew he hated his job. I knew it was killing him from the inside out. And I knew he had to keep doing it. Because of us. Because of me.
And I carry that with me every day for the rest of my life. I never wanted for anything of real importance or necessity and that was because of my father. He gave up the best years of his life for that gift. I tried to appreciate it then; I do appreciate it now. But I wonder.... what if he had had the opportunity to be happy? How might things have been different? How might I be different?
It may be why I am so sensitive to people's moods. And why it makes me almost physically uncomfortable when other people are unhappy and I can't do anything about it. Or this could all just be psychobabble.
If I could wish it for him and have it come true - I would wish my father happy with the job all of those years. And all that would come with that.
Then again, maybe I don't wish that for him. Maybe I wish that for me. Then and now.
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a professor at the University of Maryland in College Park and author of "Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road From the Late Teens Through the Twenties," says his studies of the generation have shown that they are "not spoiled and self-indulgent. Typically, kids who return home are working very hard. They're not lying around waiting for their parents to order pizza. They're often looking for jobs or employed in jobs that don't pay very well, so they can't live on their own. Many are going to school as well. I definitely don't subscribe to the theory that they're coddled adults."
But they do, he says, have very high expectations for work. "They don't want just a job. Even if it's a job that pays reasonably well. They want something more like a calling, that expresses their identities. This, Arnett allows, can make them seem spoiled to their parents, who often don't find their own jobs fulfilling and don't think that's a reasonable expectation.
(Emphasis added)
Is it so wrong to want a job which calls to you, which expresses your identity, which makes you smile (and doesn't give you worry line wrinkles) and which you never have ambivalence about discussing at cocktail parties?
I refuse to believe that it is.
The tautological argument so often put forth by the incurable miserable workaholic that "I don't want to love my job. That would only encourage me to spend more time there, and *I* aspire to have a life" is absolute crap. Yes, "loving" your job is dangerous because to use the word "love" in describing any endeavour means you will prioritize it above all else, and when you are juggling affection for an endeavour with an affection for people and the endeavour (more often than not) wins, something is wrong. See, e.g., CLC's ill-fated four year sham of a relationship with man who loved his work more than his GF (and told her so every day in choosing work first). However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to do something you find satisfying, that inspires, that lights you up. Work can (and should) be a friendly concept. A platonic relationship with work is fine. Abject misery, and a "I brought it on myself" attitude is not. Work should not be an abusive relationship.
The reality is this: Whether you love it or you hate it. Whether you are a part-time barista, a janitor, an astronaut, or the POTUS, you spend more time at work (some more than others) than at anything else you do. Don't you owe it to yourself and the people in your life which you care about to (at least try to) be happy (or as content as possible) for the majority of your waking hours?
As pie-in-the-sky as I may sound, I do acknowledge that, at the end of the day, everyone is governed by their economic realities and the basic needs for food, clothing and shelter (and payment of student loans). And I also realize, from my experience growing up (if not from my current lifestyle) that supporting one's family in these basic ways takes precedence over following one's bliss etc. My father has been doing a job he has hated for well over 25 years now. Growing up that was an undeniable truth. It pervaded my childhood home. It was, and still is, a pillar of my basic reality that my father hated his job and that it alternately made him exasperated, disconsolate, angry, and grumpy. And without fail, it always made him miserable. And I knew he did it every day. Day in and day out. Hating it all the while. The hatred of the endeavour creating an indomitable pressure within; the insistent cries and clinging hugs of his nearly half-dozen progeny maintaining a frenetic pressure without. Something had to give. But the kids needed braces, and clothes, and always had ear infections and school trip costs. And the job was always there. And he hated it. But it paid the bills. More or less. Always just barely getting by. No relief in sight - at home, at work, at the end of the month sitting staring at the check book. Willing there to be more primary numbers in front of the zeros. Something had to give. But he is the responsible one. The little ones depending, needing, wanting. They couldn't help it. But they never stopped. Never understood. Always wanted more. And so back to work. Day after day. They need. They want. And so, back to work. To provide. To provide. But something had to give.
And it did.
He never snapped. He did not run away from home. He did not quit his job. He did not become intemperate or uncontrollable. He just became sad. And unhappy. And he lost the energy to hide it. He knew he loved his children too much to run off and join the circus, to be a beach bum, or jump out of airplanes. Chasing dreams would have to wait, food needed to be put on the table. But something had to give. It was too much. It was so hard. And it made him hard. To his children, he seemed gruff. Always with an air of a gray cloud above his head. Sighs, always. He was the one charged with saying no. And the sadness. The sadness. It was always there.
I knew he hated his job. I knew it was killing him from the inside out. And I knew he had to keep doing it. Because of us. Because of me.
And I carry that with me every day for the rest of my life. I never wanted for anything of real importance or necessity and that was because of my father. He gave up the best years of his life for that gift. I tried to appreciate it then; I do appreciate it now. But I wonder.... what if he had had the opportunity to be happy? How might things have been different? How might I be different?
It may be why I am so sensitive to people's moods. And why it makes me almost physically uncomfortable when other people are unhappy and I can't do anything about it. Or this could all just be psychobabble.
If I could wish it for him and have it come true - I would wish my father happy with the job all of those years. And all that would come with that.
Then again, maybe I don't wish that for him. Maybe I wish that for me. Then and now.
posted by CLC at
10:05 PM
2 Comments:
I think you've really hit on something with your post that is hard to articulate. Of course there are economic realities, but if one spends the majority of their time (as anyone in a full time job does) doing something that they profoundly dislike, it is bound to profoundly affect that person, and probably change them into someone that they wish they weren't. I wonder if there is a so-called "happy medium" where someone may not "detest" their job, but at the same time, not love it either. Where it's a palatable way to pass the day -- the people are decent (but not wonderful/best friend types), the pay adequate (but not amazing), the work passable (but not intellectually stimulating or interesting). If one were in a middling job of this nature, would it inspire the angst of job hatred eventually? I often feel incredibly lucky in that I love what I do, and I also loved my "prior-career" so I've never felt the agnst of doing something that I hated everyday and watching that wear on my personality. But at the same time, I harbor a drop-out fantasy where I leave all of this behind, and I live in a tiny little place in the wine country and I spend my day pouring wine at some little winery and my nights walking my dog. Is it possible to find the total fulfillment that we all seem to crave from what we do? I think that even the most accomplished among us must ask that question -- Supreme Court judges, world leaders, Nobel prize winners. Is this purely an American ideal as well? The constant refrain is that in European countries people do jobs that are "adequate" so that they can pay the bills and spend time with their families and friends. That has always sounded nice to me, but I don't know if that possible to achieve here where we invest so much of our identities in "what we do." Maybe that is the source of the agnst -- wanting to create an identity from our work. I don't have the answers or even all of the questions. But your post is intriguing.
I couldn't figure out spell check before posting -- it's angst not agnst -- ack!! Annoying.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home