Why You Can’t Hate Your Job and Do Nothing About It

I’m sorry, people. But you can’t hate your job and do nothing about it. Either change your circumstance or stop complaining. Your employer deserves better — and so do you.

I understand that some jobs are tough and some bosses are just jerks. But please, please, PLEASE don’t tell me you have no options. You have options.

• You can quit.
• You can change departments.
• You can do something on the side that makes your current situation more tolerable.

You have a choice. You may not like it. It may not be easy. But you are not stuck. You can often change your circumstance. And when you can’t do that, you can change your mind.

Viktor Frankl wrote about this in the bestselling book Man’s Search for Meaning in which he sai:

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

In order for you to live a meaningful life and to do purposeful work, Frankl wrote, you need three things:

1. A relationship: Someone to love.
2. A job or a project: Something to do.
3. A mindset: Some way to redeem your pain and see the good in the bad.

Frankl wrote these words from the confines of a Nazi concentration camp, quite possibly the worst of imaginable human experiences. And if he found meaning in that circumstance, what does that say to you and me with our everyday struggles about our jobs and our lives? It means we can find meaning in nearly any circumstance as long as we have the right mindset.

Look. I am a realist. By no means do I think everyone has to love their job every day, all of the time. I work for myself and it’s no picnic. But I realize this is what I chose, and I deal with it and try to find something to love even on the days when my boss is a jerk. ;)

But life is too short to do stuff you can’t stand.

Life is too short to do stuff you can’t stand.

Don’t believe the lie that you can’t do anything about your situation. You can. This is the most amazing age in which humans have ever lived. Remember polio? Exactly. The fact that you aren’t dead yet is a friggin’ miracle.

So do something with this one life you’ve been given, please. Or don’t. But for the love of God, stop the complaining. It is quite literally making your life, and the lives of those around you, even more miserable.

You have a choice. Everyone has a choice. You can either learn to love the work you do or find work you love. But you cannot just sit there and waste everyone’s time whining about what you wish the world would give you. It doesn’t work like that.

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Jeff Goins is a writer who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his family. He is the author of the national best seller The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do. Follow him on Twitter at @JeffGoins.