Are you unhappy at your job? When that alarm goes off in the morning, do you groan and wish that you didn’t have to go back to that hellhole day after day?
I used to know exactly how you feel. Both my wife and I felt that way. The funny thing is, it wasn’t the job we hated, but the environment at our place of employment. It was so negative. The people there were always in a foul mood, they were never willing to help others, it was all about getting through the day. There was one guy there who used to rate his mood based on how close to Friday it was.
So one day my wife and I decided to make a career change, and that career change changed our lives. In fact, after we started to talking about changing jobs, we looked at the rest of our life as well. We realized that we weren’t happy with where we lived, what we did with our time, the people we had in our lives, all of it made us miserable. So we sold our house, quit our jobs, and moved 2 hours west to a town of 35,000 people from a city of 350,000.
Now what we did was take a pretty big risk, but we were at the point where things had to change quickly or we knew that our relationship would suffer. We were already taking our unhappiness out on other people we loved, so we knew we had to do something.
We made this monumental change in April of 2008. It’s been well over a year now, and almost every week one of us mentions how much we love our new life, our house, our town, basically everything about our change. Don’t get me wrong, we have our ups and downs like everyone. But when we sit and evaluate whether the change we made was worth it, the answer is always a very loud most definitely. Although we earn less money that we used to, our happiness levels have increased for sure.
I always considered myself a pretty stress-free, happy-go-lucky guy, even in my old life. I strived to not take life too seriously, to not let my job become all consuming, and to make sure I did things every day that made me happy. It was amazing to me how much stress I did have, and how doing a job I didn’t like really affected other parts of my life.
Every day I realize more and more how short life really is. I’m sure you have those conversations that eventually lead someone to say “Has it really been that long? Man time flies.” Well, I’m here to tell you it doesn’t slow down. I’m 42, and I want the second half of my life to go down a different path that the first half. I want the next 30+ years to be filled with experiences that make me laugh and build memories that make me happy every time I think of them or better yet, look at the pictures.
Wanting to change careers was the launching pad to a life change that has made a huge difference in both my life and the lives of my loved ones. Just the other day my brother commented on how it seems I don’t get bothered as much as I used to when things don’t go according to plan. He also says he noticed that I like to spend time with the family more than I used to, especially on holiday weekends. I told him that weekends used to be the only time I could really do things I enjoyed and it seemed that sometimes they were the only times that I was truly happy. Now I’m happy every day, and I make sure I do things every day that make me happy, so giving up a few weekends a year that are earmarked for family get-togethers doesn’t upset me.
If you are unhappy, I urge you to make some changes now, before it is too late. Life comes at us fast, and we only get one trip to the buffet. Eat like there’s no tomorrow. Fill that whole plate with lobster if that’s what you like. Don’t wait until the second plate…what if it never comes?
Be Happy. 