The One Reason I Still Work at a Nine to Five
Sure, having a nine to five is nice in some sense, but is there more we should strive for?
7:24 AM.
You roll into the office. You flip on your cubicle light, boot up your laptop, and get to work.
You reach for your coffee and notice it’s already room temperature. You look up and see the buzz around you. 12:31 PM.
Have I really been answering emails all morning?
You dive back into your work. Put in a few more hours, a couple more meetings, and hop in your car for your 45-minute commute home.
As you sit in traffic and blame yourself for not taking a detour, something creeps up inside of you.
Your pulse quickens. Your arm hairs prick up. It’s coming. That thought.
Why am I doing this?
And for once, you honestly answer…
I don’t know.
The Reason I Still Have a Nine to Five
I count having a full-time job as a blessing (especially being a Millennial in a post-recession economy).
I just have to show up Monday through Friday, and they pay me money.
I’m home at a consistent time every day.
I get amazing health insurance.
I have a desk to myself, unlimited free coffee (although I’ve recently switched to decaf), and a delicious salad bar for lunch.
It’s easy.
If I’m 100% honest with myself, that’s the only reason I still have a nine to five: It’s easy.
My full-time job is my security. It helps me and my family get by. It affords me the luxuries of life.
I give them 40 hours a week and in return, they take away my anxieties of not knowing when (or where) the next paycheck will come.
It’s a trade off. It’s comfortable.
It’s not for me.
Why Do We Take The Easy Path?
College was easy. Interviewing was easy. Interning was easy. Getting hired was easy. Needless to say, I’ve had an easy career path.
I took the easy path thinking it was the practical path to take. But I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older practicality is highly overrated.
Practicality has no sense of adventure. Practicality hides away our full potential. Practicality snuffs out our dreams.
We take the practical and easy path because we are afraid of the alternative: 100% control of our destiny.
Like I said before, working a full-time job is a trade-off. Employers offer many perks in exchange for our time, enough to keep us at bay but not enough to settle our restlessness for more.
Even worse, we allow our job to act as a cancer that eats away at our hopes and dreams.
I wish I could become a freelance photographer and travel the world, but this job is holding me back…
Instead of taking action to Step Forward toward our dream we dwell on negativity. And we keep doing it day after day, week after week until we wake up one day with no more energy to dream and waste away our life until retirement.
The easy path leads to a pit of despair. Let’s take the road less traveled instead.
A Foot Off The Path
It’s never too late to recognize you’re on the wrong path. Better yet, it’s never too late to find a new path.
If you’re like me, you’ve struggled for a long time to realize you have more potential than succumbing to a nine to five. You want adventure, freedom, and fulfillment.
The easy path is well paved, which makes setting one foot off the path that much more challenging.
I don’t know what it’s like to wake up every morning with the overwhelming sense of freedom. I don’t know what it’s like to not know where my next paycheck will come from. I don’t know what it’s like to work when and where I want.
I’m afraid to find out, but I’m tired of the alternative. Are you?
This post originally appeared on my blog, millennialtype.com. I’d really appreciate some ❤’s and/or you checking out my newest book: “The Millennial Way.”
