The Myth of "Following Your Dreams"

 Does anyone else feel like the phrase "Make changes in your life like quitting your job and be happy!" is extremely patronizing, or is that just me?

Sure, Joe Not-Really-a-Millionaire, you did... something... and now you live in Dubai and now you're happy.  Great.

But I just cannot help but think that that's... patronizing.  And simplistic.  And not at all feasible for the vast majority of human beings.  Some of us don't have the option to just quit our job to be happy.  Some of us have jobs and keep our jobs and aren't considering quitting (at least not yet) not because they make us happy but because they make us money.

I know I personally have spent way too much time, as evidenced by some of my posts, struggling financially to be able to feasibly be at a point where we feel comforatble leaving the stability and comfort of a full-time job that pays well enough to live in a decent part of the country, or world, and don't have the ability to feel comfortable leaving that to follow non-existent dreams.

I guess I simply feel so tired of the influencer and live-for-what-makes-you-happy mentality that I cannot simply comprehend this concept.

Do I love what I do as a job?  No.  I enjoy the work I do, and I enjoy the problem-solving skills it gives me, the patience that grows daily evidenced by the simple fact that I haven't actually quit yet.  I mean, again, I enjoy the work itself.  But there are enough other things going on with my job that just completely suck all the enjoyment out of it.

So why don't I quit?  "Liz," I can hear you saying, "you shouldn't feel like you should have to stay at a job you hate just because it pays the bills!  Just leave, and follow your dreams!"

I'm so glad you asked about my dreams, dear reader.

What are these dreams?

I wish I knew.

No, really.

I wish I knew.

I wish I knew what I wanted to do with my life.  I wish I had enough of an idea of what gives me joy and what I want to do with my life.

There are things I enjoy, but then I do them, and I realize that they aren't paying the bills because no one actually pays me at all to do them.

So that can't be an option.

You see, some of us need to be making money.  Because not all of us have the luxury of being able to do whatever we want however we want, wherever we want.  Trust me, and believe me when I say that if I knew how to do that, I would have.  I don't enjoy working in customer service and I don't enjoy being stepped on by management and ignored and reprimanded for things that just prove that I have very high standards for myself and for others, deserved or not.  I don't enjoy being told to "deal with it, because everyone makes mistakes" when there's a difference between "making mistakes" and "not correcting mistakes so they keep happening ad nauseam."

Okay, work rant over.

I just fail to see the logic in quitting my job to follow my dreams now because "it'll make me happy" when what will make me happy is a completely unrealistic goal that I will only be able to achieve by some miracle of international diplomacy or a lottery win when I don't even play the lottery.

You see why, reader, why I can't just pack up and quit my job and make myself happy.

Because making myself happy does not pay the bills.

Plain and simple.

No one wants to pay me for what I write.  No one wants to pay me for the pictures I take and every once in a while decide to share on the internet as though I had any discernible photography or photo editing talent.  I have no marketable skills, no reason why any company anywhere outside of where I'm working right now would want to hire me.

No, I am one of those sad sacks who is relegated to a life of customer service, a failing industry in the developed world (as this position is constantly being outsourced to places with cheap labor such as Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe).

My language skills get me nowhere as no one wants to hire Americans before hiring their own citizens, and I'm far too old to do any kind of entry level job in another industry.

This is the reality of a lot of people, not just myself.  My college degree is barely as valuable as the paper it's printed on, and there are other Millenials in this same boat.

And before you come at me for being too self-deprecating... I'm not.  I'm being realistic.  I've spent too long just trying to get any job, and only being eligible and hired for customer service positions.  That is my frame of reference because I've tried other things, I've tried getting other work.

I'm either a citizen of the wrong country, not willing to sacrifice my sanity to do teaching in another country.  So please don't tell me to look at teaching English positions; I will laugh in your face.  I'm not a teacher.  I've tried this.  It did not go well.  I'm not good with kids, I can barely tolerate dealing with people at the job that pays me and that I enjoy to a relatively high degree (Seriously, if it weren't for management issues, I would love my job; I have loved my job.  Management has ruined my enjoyment.).

Anyway.

I tell you what, Joe Not-Really-a-Millionaire.  I will quit my job when you can promise me that I won't spend the next six months crying over my decision because I have no other way to make money and can't even move to another part of the world that's more affordable than the US because it'll take months before they'll even consider them letting me into the country before I die of boredom for not being able to work and do something with my life because they don't hire Americans and I can't do anything with my life.

Maybe then I'll quit my job.

In the meantime, please shut up.  I don't need your patronizing language while I'm just trying to survive.