This Christmas break I was sat around with a group of friends and talk inevitably came round to work. Most of my friends were lamenting having to head back to work but I found myself keeping quiet as *gasp, shock, horror* I didn’t echo their frustrations. My friendship group has a really broad range of employment; from lawyers and doctors, to event managers, logistics experts, corporate managers, estate agents and even one who spends their day in the woods helping children to develop more outdoorsy skills. You can safely say that we all have very different jobs, and I doubt that any of us have ever experienced the same career challenges or stresses. So why the dislike regarding heading back to work?
Of course we would all like to be paid to sit around and do anything but work, but seeing as that is never going to happen we need to accept that work is a key part of our life. Don’t get me wrong, I have those mornings when I don’t want to get out of bed and would much rather spend my day sleeping and watching films in bed but that is largely down to my ongoing battle with my internal sloth not due to a dislike for my job. Here’s a confession for you – I love my job. I actually really love it. How many people can really say that? In truth I don’t really think of it as a job, but more of a vocation. Bit much? Maybe, but it’s true.
One thing that came from my chat with my friends is how many are in roles that if you had told their 15-year-old selves what they would be doing in their 30s and 40s, then I can imagine their 15-year-old self would have laughed. Not because they have bad jobs – trust me, far from it – but because so many of their jobs just aren’t on the traditional ‘things to do when I’m an adult’ list. For me, PR has always been on that list. I won’t lie, I found out what PR was from watching Absolutely Fabulous. And yes, for a little while I thought it was going to be all champagne and fabulous parties. But digging a little deeper I realised that PR sounded like exactly the kind of job I could do. And from that moment onwards PR was the only career for me. So much so, I wanted to go to university to study it but all the responsible adults around me talked me out of it “in case I didn’t like it and then I would be stuck” – ha! I showed them! A “few years” later and it’s the only job I’ve ever had and will ever have.
This blog isn’t really about me gloating about how much I love my job, but it’s more of a discussion around how can we love our jobs more. The fact that we have to work puts a lot of pressure on us, plus we spend more time at work than we do with our nearest and dearest, so how can we learn to accept that Sunday feeling and perhaps even embrace it? Is that even possible?
I would love to hear your thoughts on ‘loving work’. Is it really about finding a deep-seated passion, or merely learning to accept your lot? What advice would you give your younger self?