What Moves You?
Resilient is possibly the definition that best suits me. But this is not about me, it’s about the overwhelming feeling the people around me transpire. It is like walking at the bottom of a huge mountain knowing an avalanche is ready to fall. I have recently left Facebook, best decision ever, but negativity is now attacking from LinkedIn. I have plenty of connections complaining about their situations — no job, no business — and, honestly, ninety-five percent of my new connections are people looking for a job. Should I isolate myself and get off from all social media completely? Maybe not, running away is not always the right choice. I can only aim to help, pretending I can.
I believe working in itself is a great issue. It should not be a problem, but for the most it is. If I ask why do you need a job, most will answer because they need the money. So if I could give you money, would you ever work? What would you do if you had money to pay all your bills already? How would you spend your time? I am sure we all have a friend with a nice hobby and he invests most of his money on it, every time we meet he says “ ooh, I have to work to be able to spend my free time following my dream of playing the piano”. Why doesn’t he commit to his dream and make the step to become a musician? Or it could be a skier, a diving instructor, a bike rider. It appears we all are living the wrong life, and we have to work to earn money to live the life we want to live during our spare time. It sounds wrong to me. First I want to distinguish between needs and necessity. If you need money and you need it now, it means you cannot survive without it and you accept any job available regardless of your background. Stop posting that you are at home doing nothing and your industry is experiencing a down turn. When the environment change, you must make the change. We have to accept the fact an industry may not have the need for our skill sets. Make peace with that and move on. There is nothing you can do, get a job in another sector, get a pizza delivery job if you need to put food on the table. There is no shame in doing a job, as long you do it right and with respect for your customers. I have no problem to shake your hand, even if it is dirty from grease or garbage. Mine is not that clean either anyway. Necessity is the same craving, but you can manage to survive without. Is your job necessary? I mean what you are doing now, is it what fits you, does it represent you? This is a question I pose myself too.
When we work we give something and we get something back, usually money. I like to think it is not that true. If you leave you job now, what will you take away that you didn’t have when you first got employed? Experience, you learned something. What if you are in a job and you have nothing more to learn? I would personally quit. That is the right time to leave a job for the right reason. We made the money, the reason to work, and we lost the reason why we do what we do. When we play a sport we play with a purpose. We train for performances, to win, to bond with the team. The target there is visible and tangible. With money it is different. It is not real, you use it to buy other stuff, it is a means to obtain something. It is all about your purpose in life. Elon Musk recently Tweeted very inspiring words that Forbes reported in this article: “Our existence cannot just be about solving one miserable problem after another. There needs to be reasons to live.”
Don’t repeat your day time and time again, doing the same things, becoming master of repetition. Do you remember a movie called “Groundhog Day”? A man wakes up one day in a time loop and repeats that day all over again. Eventually he needs to review his priorities and start to make some changes to get out of the loop. Does it sound familiar? How many of us are the main character in their own Groundhog Day version?
Do you have kids? Do you think your son wants to change you for another dad? Maybe your wife will, but this is food for another dinner… He will feel the pain if you leave. Will your company feel the pain if you leave? What did you give to your son that you haven’t to your company? I am not going to give you answer about this, the answers are within yourself. But I am going to give you the other side of the story. There will be a point, no matter how much effort you put in, that your kids will leave the house. Do you start to see it? There will be a point, no matter how good you have been doing your job, no matter how good your company has been, you need to move forward to keep growing.
What moves you?
