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-Short Attention Span Theater-
How to outlast a job you hate until you can retire
2019-01-07
[MarketWatch] First, the good news: You’re closing in on retirement. After decades of long hours and loyal service, you only have another few years until you can kiss your job goodbye.

The bad news is you dread every minute. Even surviving another month will require Herculean effort.

Ideally, you’d quit now. But your financial plan dictates that you keep generating income into the early 2020s so that you can retire with a comfortable nest egg.

Perhaps you’re bored or exhausted in your job. Cynicism and negativity cloud your every thought. To make matters worse, an odious boss tears away at the thinning shreds of sanity you cling to.

So how do you persevere?

In rallying yourself to reach the finish line, you have a choice. You can either gripe at every available opportunity ‐ lamenting your situation, lambasting higher-ups and regretting career moves you made years ago ‐ or find a more productive way to cope.

Let’s focus on the latter.

Start by taking charge of your thoughts. Impose a time limit on how often you will stew in anger or self-pity. Endlessly telling yourself, "I can’t stand it here" or "I’ll never be able to make it through another month here, much less a year or two" won’t help.
Posted by:Besoeker

#16  “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

― Mark Twain
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2019-01-07 19:49  

#15  #9 Besoeker said it better than I ever could. But would that many, many more people thought that way.
Posted by: Tom   2019-01-07 15:11  

#14  Wisdom gained while attending a 7-YO birthday party 9 Grand-daughter #2): "What would write, if you could, to the person that provided you the nudge to enter whatever line of work that makes you happy? Then write it down."
Posted by: USN, Ret.   2019-01-07 10:56  

#13  Ref #12: I applaud your initiative and obvious wisdom Raj. If we ever lose entrepreneurs like you, we are finished. You are the foundation of MAGA.
Posted by: Besoeker   2019-01-07 08:45  

#12  I'm self-employed because it gives me the ability to pick & choose who I work 'with'. I'm at a point I can do most of this stuff through e-mail and that meeting with every client every year isn't necessary, for either one of us. yes, paying the Federal self-employment tax sucks (CPA's in Mass. aren't allowed to elect S Corp. status with the IRS), but if that's the price I have to pay, so be it.
Posted by: Raj   2019-01-07 08:25  

#11  ^ This
Posted by: Frank G   2019-01-07 06:56  

#10  I give similar advice to younger people: Besides picking a line of work that will generate an income for you, pick something you like doing that is worth doing - and I add this - and which attracts other workers you like working with. The last part sometimes requires you to change jobs within your specialty.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2019-01-07 02:42  

#9  And stuff I occasionally begrudged I see again now clearly is actually one of my jobs.

Thanks, Besoeker. Thank you a lot.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2019-01-07 01:17  

#8  B. You said it all.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2019-01-07 01:12  

#7  I enjoyed watching my family eat, be properly sheltered and educated, basic hierarchy of needs stuff. No one was going to stand in the way of my making these things happen. That was father and grandfather's mission. It was my mission as well.
Posted by: Besoeker   2019-01-07 01:06  

#6  Absolute best compliment I ever got: When a new hire asked why don't I ever smile, a co-worker beat me to the answer - "Be careful. When he smiles something bad is about to happen."
Posted by: M. Murcek   2019-01-07 01:00  

#5  I gave my kids this advice. When you are young and someone asks you what you want to be you say, "an astronaut" or "a MLB pitcher". Around high school, you find out that you get motion sickness and your fastball is 55 mph.

So ask yourself, "Of all the things that you like to do, what subset of those are you good at?"

Lastly, around the age of 25, you realize that it sucks to be poor. So of all those things that you both like and are good at, which will make you money?

Failure to identify something that you like, are good at, and will make you some money will result in you needing to heed the advice of how to outlast a job that you hate until you can retire.
Posted by: Crash Dark Lord of the Veal Cutlets1879   2019-01-07 00:56  

#4  Work is by definition demeaning. Why the hell did Hemingway - the real one - write about fishing, hunting and watching other people fight wars?
Posted by: M. Murcek   2019-01-07 00:40  

#3  Definitely wasn't Kelly, he whined about how soul killing his job was all the time.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2019-01-07 00:37  

#2  Written by Rex, Mattis, Kelly, or McMasters?
Posted by: Victor Emmanuel Trotsky3550   2019-01-07 00:34  

#1  If it was a party, you wouldn't be getting paid to show up...
Posted by: M. Murcek   2019-01-07 00:30  

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