Are We Living Just to Work Our Whole Lives?
We’ve lost sight of what really matters.
I grew up believing money was scarce. I also grew up believing a college education and a good GPA would land you a high-paying job. That job would lead to money, money bought you nice things, and nice things would bring you automatic happiness. Money was a means to an end.
But society has forgotten why we strive for money in the first place and instead focus only on gaining wealth. While money makes life a lot easier, happiness is not guaranteed because of it. This mentality has taken us further away from what we truly want: to be happy, to be loved, and to live a life true to ourselves.
With this preconceived notion, I was excited to graduate college because that meant I could start my career and build the life I want. Little did I know, the real world wasn’t as it seemed. They don’t tell you that you’ll have student loans to pay, that you’ll be job searching for months or more to land a mediocre job, and that you might be stuck at that job for the rest of your life working under someone else’s terms. Then decades later, you wonder how your life passed right before your eyes. You got the car, house, and nice things yet you still feel unfulfilled. The conditions were met but the promises were broken.
I used to glorify work because it meant you were earning enough money to support yourself, possibly even your loved ones. It seemed to be the answer to the struggles I knew too well growing up financially unstable. It could get me a fancy car, a big house, and nice things, all of which I thought were important. People paint a pretty picture for you. But that’s all it is: a fantasy.
After graduating college, I thought I had the world at my fingertips. I thought a bachelor’s degree and a high GPA would bring me unlimited opportunities and set me up for life. I was excited for the future ahead of me.
I finally had the freedom to decide what I wanted to do. I had worked so hard my whole life for this moment. I was waiting to land the perfect job after college. But that perfect job never came, even 6 years later. I couldn’t even find a job I qualified for. It didn’t matter that I went to a university, that I had good grades, or that I had a good work ethic. I wasn’t aware that some degrees, including mine, were just a pretty piece of paper that people used to determine my value. But it did nothing to further my non-existent career.
You can say I went from an optimist to a skeptic within a matter of months when apparently I didn’t qualify for any job. I soon learned that it didn’t matter what degree you had, just that you had one. But not to employers, just for your social status.
So you work to survive. It’s a necessity. But do we dig ourselves into a deeper hole when we buy into the narrative that flashy things lead to happiness?
Work is heavily prioritized in the U.S. Most of us work overtime on a fixed salary, only have two weeks' vacation and limited sick days, and if we unexpectedly lose our jobs, we wouldn’t have any savings to fall back on. This is the norm in America.
Work is essential. It gives us the means to buy resources to survive in the modern world. It provides for yourself, your family, and gives you the means to live. But there’s not much else I can say beyond that in its favor.
Work becomes our life. We can’t have a healthy work-life balance while also not having to worry about living paycheck to paycheck. Realistically, not all of us will like our jobs, much less love them. But we all need money. So what can we do?
Well, the workplace needs a lot of improvement. But I don’t know if this will be changing anytime soon. The only thing we can do is change our mindset. We have to reevaluate what we actually need in our lives. If you don’t, you are stuck working a job you hate to pay for things you don’t need. We buy things to feel temporary satisfaction and continue to do so when it doesn’t last. You are essentially trading in your time, health, and energy for material things.
Over the years, we’ve become zombies. We need extra income so badly that we have to pursue our passions outside of work. That’s why side hustles have become so mainstream lately. Unfortunately, that still means work is even invading our limited personal time too.
What would you be doing with your time if you didn’t have to work? Would you spend it driving around in your fancy car, showing off your huge house, or using the latest technology? Or would you want to spend it with the people you love? Maybe out in nature experiencing the world around you.
We get so preoccupied with what work is rather than focusing on why we work. It’s a distraction. We forget our hopes, our dreams, and our passions. We think we should use money to buy us things when we should be using it to get us closer to freedom. Freedom to do what you want and spend time with the people you love. We hold work on a pedestal and life hanging by a thread.
Yes, we need to work to reach happiness but it’s not the work you think it is. The work we need to do is internal. You have to do a lot of internal work to have a mindset that allows you to feel content no matter what is going on in your life. The daily work will get you there but we’ve got so caught up in changing everything externally that we forget what’s really important.
After I graduated I knew I wanted more out of life. I just didn’t know what. I didn’t believe in the amount of time we spent working to spend on things we don’t need. Yes, we need to pay rent/mortgage, a car payment, and all the other necessities in life. But the house doesn’t have to be a 5 bedroom with two guest rooms and a loft. The car doesn’t have to be luxurious. When we buy unnecessary items, we have to continue to work in jobs we hate. But if we save that money instead, we might have the opportunity to eventually quit that job and seek employment we would enjoy more even if it’s for less pay.
As someone who has struggled financially her whole life, I am redefining what work means to me. We can no longer ignore the mental toll work has on us. If I don’t spend it on things I don’t need then I can make money in a way that doesn’t drain me.
My dad worked his whole life only to not own a house or a functioning car close to retirement age. My parents purchased cars they couldn’t afford to maintain and bought a house with a mortgage they couldn’t keep up with. This set them back for the rest of their lives. I can tell you it’s not worth it. I’ve personally witnessed what can happen when you pursue these things thinking the grass is greener on the other side.
We are currently living with our relatives and this has caused my dad more stress than you know. All because he believed in the American Dream so strongly that he was willing to sacrifice everything to get it.
Most of us are told the same narrative from the moment we are born. Get a good education and a high-paying job and you’ll be set for life. Use that income to buy nice things and you’re on the path to happiness.
Then after working for the majority of our lives, we find out we don’t feel the way we should. But we don’t know what we can do to change that so we do what we know best. We continue to pursue the same things with the hope that eventually, we’ll find the fulfillment we’ve been looking for.
But we forget the mental toll working all of our lives can have on us. If we spend the majority of our lives sleeping and working, we don’t have time to care for ourselves. Our purpose quite literally becomes to work for money. Then we spend that money on things. We literally spend most of our lives working just to pay for material things.
I want my work to help me reach my goals not drive me further away from them. If I can use the money I earn now to get the life I want, I am taking that opportunity. I don’t want to fall prey to false promises and the perception of what my life is supposed to look like. I am redefining what happiness means to me and it doesn’t involve living up to society’s expectations.
