I was sitting in my cubicle the other day and received an email from a co-worker that was working on a Masters degree thesis and was doing some sort of survey. I don’t know exactly what discipline he was obtaining his Masters degree in, but it didn’t seem to be within the career field that we are in. But that is besides the point of this article. I had gotten that sinking feeling once again in my stomach as it reminded me how I never went back to school to achieve a Masters like some of the other Office Dorks I work with. That’s when I had a revelation.
First of all, I was young when I went to college and didn’t really know what I had wanted to do and of course also had silly beliefs about the career field I had chosen. My degree was very hard to achieve and I hated every second of it. As I got into my career, and as I grew older, I realized more and more how much I hated what I did for a living. Soon enough, I absolutely completely dreaded getting up in the morning to go to work. And yea, I still feel that way today and I still work in the career field that I had chosen. But I am working on changing that. So my revelation was, why go back and get a Masters degree in something that I don’t enjoy? Duh! What a simple, but so profound revelation.
If you don’t enjoy something, then don’t do it! Yes, work is work and it really isn’t suppose to be fun. That’s why they call it work, and I understand that. But you only want to go back to school for a particular discipline only if you have an intense interest in it and want to study it further. Because if you don’t have an interest in something, then you aren’t going to do very well. If you take someone that loves auto-mechanics and cars and engines, then I would bet they would do very well in a curriculum where they are studying auto-mechanics or perhaps even automotive engineering. They would do well because their intense interest keeps their attention span focused much better on what they are studying, and as a result they end up learning everything there is to know about it. Now put that same individual in a curriculum to achieve some sort of degree in marine biology or chemical engineering, and I assure you they would not do as well because they probably have absolutely no interest in it.
So what I am really trying to say is that since I don’t really enjoy what I do, then I really have no business being back in the classroom for it. I have no business there and shouldn’t be there. And it’s not my fault that I don’t have a real interest in what I do. I just don’t enjoy it, and that’s just how I am. Back when I was in school, I put up and tolerated what I went through to achieve my degree because I had an immature belief that I was going to get some sort of really exciting job that paid big bucks and it was going to be fun. For example, some kid studying Mechanical Engineering might have some sort of belief that he is going to go work for the Ford Shelby design team and design a new Ford Cobra when he graduates school. Only to find out he can only find employment designing piping for the plumbing system of a movie theater that is being built. How boring!! ( I used that example because I actually knew someone that lived through that same scenerio)
Anyways, if you have found after so many years of doing something that you just don’t enjoy it and you hate it, then don’t bother going any further with it in the career world or the classroom. So work on making a change and perhaps leveraging what you already do into a career that you can tolerate more. I am working on doing that myself at the moment. There aren’t a heck of a lot of career fields to go into anyways, but there seem to be a few new ones that have come about because of the ever-changing business world. Also, as I have grown into an adult and have been in the work force for so many years, I have developed interests in things that I never had before. That’s the beauty of becoming an adult. You do develop new interests, and that keeps life exciting. Eventually I will find something that I can have an interest in, and as a result I will end up learning everything there is to know about what I do and then naturally advance my career. You can’t live through life always doing things that you hate because you think there might be a greater financial reward or status to compensate it. Who wants to live out most of their life doing something that they hate? A lot of people already know this of course, but it took me this long to finally realize something so simple. It lifted a huge weight off of me and stopped me from beating myself up over not going back to school and getting that Masters degree in something that I hate and don’t enjoy. It’s not my fault that I feel that way and I have finally accepted it and see the overall big picture now. Duh.