It's Okay to Hate Your Job Sometimes

We've all been there -- we worked all our lives to get a particular job and after years, months or even weeks, you start to hate that long-desired-for job with every fiber of your being.

We just don't all admit that we hate our jobs and this leads to guilt which leads to more job hatred which leads to more guilt which leads to --

Well, you see where it goes.

Don't think this will ever happen to you? Think again. IT WILL. I don't care if your job is to eat too much, sleep to much and spend too much money, there will come a time when the thought of going to work will make you damn near suicidal.

And I was one of you.

I used to think that if only I could make money as a writer, I'd always love my job. And you know the old saying, if you work at what you love then it isn't work.

Poppycock.

Work is WORK, no matter how well it's dressed or how fat it's bank account. If you HAVE to do it, you will eventually loathe it.

For example:

About ten years ago, when I was stuck working at Macy's (which eventually lead to a breakdown -- but that's another story) I read a biography of Dorothy Parker. She was one of the most original and gifted of American writers. However, her not-so-secret-secret was that she HATED writing. And I promised myself that I would NEVER hate writing in the way Dorothy Parker did.

You know what happened next.

Flash-forward ten years later and I'm staring at the ever-dwindling online content writer's market and wishing that I NEVER HAVE TO DO THIS AGAIN.

For the last few months, I've had to stop writing for money due to my Mom's deteriorating health. Caring for her (and the dogs, and the fish and the laundry and etc.) left me feeling absolutely exhausted. Who can string a sentence together when you can barely keep conscious (unless you're Charles Bukowski, but only HE could pull that off.)

I felt damn near suicidal for hating my  job (well, my PAID job. My MAIN job is taking care of my Mom and the pets.) Hating my job felt sacrilegious somehow. I mean, I longed to be a writer all my life and now I managed it and now I hated what I'd pinned my hopes on for 45 years.

But now I've gotten over it and managed in the last week to find a few paid online writing gigs. And life goes on. Remember that hate is the other side of the coin of love.