Let’s talk about a rather ubiquitous topic to the current everyday for the average person. The thing which both keeps you going, and sometimes makes you feel like you don’t even want to keep going anymore. While it may be a rather double-edged sword, it most definitely serves its role in society rather consistently. We are of course talking about work. Employment, your nine to 5. The thing which puts bread on the table, the daily grind. The large majority of us have been there, or at least are going to be there in the future. Depending on where you find yourself in the world, your current job market situation might be a bit better or a bit worse, but recently amongst the bigger cities in the world, it’s becoming harder and harder to get into any sort of field other than basic catering or street cleaning. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with those fields, and they often are an important stepping stone in just about anyone’s career, they are probably not professions which are someone’s lifelong dream.
Aspirations
Just like no one wants to work for minimum wage their whole life, nobody wants to work a boring job all their life either. Not because we’re lazy, not because we’re ungrateful, but purely because we are only human, and we seek something which fulfils us on a more self-gratifying level. Sure you could say that all you need to do is switch off for eight hours, go to work and just get home then do whatever you want to do, but that is often not a possibility. By the time you come back from work, people often feel so burnt out and decimated by their daily routines, sometimes tedious tasks and moody, picky customers, that they don’t even have the amount of mental energy needed to get involved in any activities. At the time when you’re finally done with responsibilities for the day, you can probably only muster up the strength to sit on the sofa to watch TV, alternatively crawl into bed and put on YouTube on your phone or laptop. It might sound grim, but with the average job which you’re not exactly interested in, you’re going to feel more and more tired as the months go on, making you feel like an emptier and emptier husk every coming weekend. Now, that does sound rather dismal, but there’s no need to have an existential crisis just yet. This is not the fate which you have to suffer, in fact, no one does, but the world just gets to us sometimes, and pushing back doesn’t come easy. Fortunately for you, there are quite a few ways in which you can start to work towards a lifestyle which respects your personal wellbeing a bit more, or at least keeps you feeling fulfilled. Sure you might still be tired by the end of it, but hopefully a good kind of tired.
Achieving a “good kind of tired”
Well, let’s think about when this kind of phenomena usually occurs. It would be safe to say that this mostly happens after extensively engaging in activities which are enjoyable for you. This spans over many areas, and includes but is not limited to:
- Days out with the family
- Field trips
- Spending a lot of time on your hobbies, even into late nights
- Playing sports for several hours
- Finishing a long project you are proud of at work
- Helping friends or family with something for the day, like moving house or painting rooms as well as any manner of favours which may be asked of you by your loved ones
Now, these are just a few examples, but what do they all have in common? Well, the running trend seems to be that even if they may be tiring tasks, they all have some form of enjoyable element to them. Something which leaves you beaming with self-fulfilment at the end of the day, and you feel ready to take on the world and keep going despite feeling like your knees are about to give out. That is the kind of state of mind that you want to have regularly, in order to not only be more productive with your hobbies and pastimes, but also so that you actually enjoy doing them. Because after all, what are we without hobbies or interests of sorts? We lack an identity, we just become a machine which goes in to work every day and comes home to recharge in front of a monitor then pass out for 8 or so hours. It’s not a way of life which seems very fulfilling at all, and that’s what we’re all about.
Fulfilment
Of course, not everyone has time to go on trips with friends and family or something along those lines every day, understandably so. This might leave you thinking to yourself “But then how do I get any sort of self-fulfilment when I hate my job and have no time to do anything I like, let alone get involved in activities with friends”. Well, the answer is surprisingly simple in theory, and nowhere near as impossible as some make it out to be in practice. You just have to look at that dreadful job you despise so much, and take it out of the equation in its entirety. “But I have bills to pay and mouths to feed! It’s not that easy!”, yes, it isn’t, and quitting a job in the current working climate can often lead to a decent chunk of time where we end up without any sort of sustainable income. However, yet again, there is a way about this which allows you to smoothly transition between jobs. In fact, maybe even you can transition to a job in an entirely different profession, one that you find yourself passionate about. Let’s go into just how one would go about achieving that.
Doing what you love is more possible than you think
The idea of the “rat race” is more prevalent that ever in our current world, especially across the bigger cities in the world, so it’s not hard to believe when people say that they’re “stuck in their job”. Fortunately enough, or tragically rather, this has been an issue for long enough for someone to finally step up to the plate and do something about it. No, no one is going around handing out dream careers on the street just yet, but we are not that far away from the next best thing. You can get started with working towards your new career with relative ease, regardless whether it’s something you’ve never been involved with before, or something you already have some experience in, perhaps from doing it as a hobby. This was not as much of an option a mere decade ago as it is now, and that’s mostly due to educational institutions being a lot less rigid for the average adult, and often provide much more flexible attendance times. For example Birkbeck University of London, which is actually entirely targeted at adults who work during the days, but want to put their evenings to good use by investing into learning skills which could boost them into their new career. Other than that, you could just go a standard, old-fashioned, tried and tested university which might not give you as much freedom, but realistically speaking you will be able to work part-time while attending it as well. If you have some savings, or a place where you can stay for a while without having to pay rent, then just plainly going or going back to university, can be the best option. Considering some universities are the best of the best at what they do, you could even check which ones they are online. Ranging from the top aerospace universities in the UK, to the absolute best fashion universities around, there are certainly enough rankings and reviews out there to help you decide where you would like to attend.
Attending school or university not a possibility?
Well, that’s understandable. Some people have trouble even having enough time to cook dinner when they get home, let alone go out of their way to travel somewhere after work for another few hours. Fortunately for you, getting a full degree or even a masters is absolutely possible without much of a need to even leave your room, on the internet. Whether it’s business and management, law, medical sciences, engineering or psychology, design, art or languages, there’s always something for you out there. There are plenty of institutions with flexible learning at the forefront of their motto, so if anything, they will probably understand your situation. That said, just going to university is not the only option in starting up a new career. Some of the best and most successful entrepreneurs in the world happen to be high school dropouts, and as you can see, the CEO of Virgin, Richard Branson is doing pretty well for himself. If you feel like you have a plan for a business which has potential, or a skill which people are willing to pay you for professionally, there’s a way. No matter what piece of paper you may or may not have to prove your worth, if your portfolio is impressive
