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Tuesday, September 22, 2015

New Article on Newsweek!

I've always felt like 9-5 jobs were specifically created to replicate the experience of hell on earth.

But it could be worse; I could work one of the jobs I wrote about for Newsweek today.


It's interesting; talking to these people about what made their jobs terrible convinced me of one major thing: literally any job can be terrible.

I don't think there exists an objectively "good" job. There are just jobs that you can handle, and jobs that you can't, and whether you fall into the "can" or "can't" camp (try saying that five times fast) depends less on what's being asked of you, and more on whether the shit things about your job strike you as immediate, raging heartburn, or as challenges that you're excited to overcome.

Do you value security or enjoy the excitement of making it up as you go? Does having a boss make you grit your teeth, or would being the boss give you an early-onset heart attack? Do you want your job to give you a sense of higher purpose, or is any decently-paid job that you don't have to bring home at night the goal?

I think of my "job," being a writer, as living the dream, but that's only because it's my dream. There's plenty about it that could make someone wired differently--say to enjoy the puzzle of fixing an engine, or the pleasing tangibility of accounting for every penny, or the meaning that helping someone get well might give--might hate.

It's not about the "best" or "worst" job; it's about finding out enough about yourself to wind up in one that doesn't make you want to tear your hair out...

...which, of course, is FAR harder than we all want to believe.

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