Jobs are different kinds. There are full-time jobs, part-time, contract, contract-to-hire, passion projects, soul-crushing jobs, there are self-owned businesses, gig jobs, freelancing, and whatever, you name it. As many as there are problems in our lives, as many there must be jobs because all jobs should help solve the problems we have. We all need jobs. We all should get jobs. We spend our lives working jobs, making careers, busting our balls trying to make it, or making ends meet. We are always told that “It’s good that you have a job”, “It is good to be busy”, “Busy is good, right?” I guess it depends on what you are busy with and how much of it you really care about. Most of the time, we all hate our jobs, but we have our obligations, debt, family, kids, bills, loans, and we work and work and work until we die.

I am one of those “lucky privileged bastards” who finished college, and now I have had quite a few years of professional work experience behind my belt. I am considered middle-class or somewhere near that based on my salary, and I am supposedly the one “who made it.” I came to this country, and I’ve got my education, and I’ve got multiple jobs over time, and now I am who I am, a professional. I followed the traditional path to “normal life” by getting a four-year degree and working my many career jobs so I could be promoted over time and move from one position to a better one. Back in the day, that sounded like a great plan. Back in my early college days, that seemed like it was the only way to “make it.” I didn’t want to work at factories and construction sites all my life like most people that I knew did. I wanted to be in the office, working clean and safe jobs and getting promotions as time goes by. I guess now I’ve got what I wanted. As this became my life now, I started wondering, what the fuck did I really achieve, and why am I so fucking miserable all the time?

There are a shit ton of people out there who, with or without the proper education, made a tremendous success in life, whether it is building a business or creating a new product or service or new app or whatever. Most of them never got a proper education; most of them were college or high-school drop-outs. Most of the people you know or see hitting the road to work every day on the highway, are with an excellent education are just fucking office people who none of us will ever know or hear from or notice them amongst the crowd. They are the masses, the masses who followed the plan. It is not always bad to have a secure job and steady income and keep on “growing” and living a “normal” life. The problem is the cost that you pay for it. It is not the price of your salary. It is never just those fifty or one hundred thousand dollars in school loans that you’ve borrowed because you were led to believe that you are investing in your life, your dream, or your future. Sometimes it is true, but it is so fucking false in most cases. Once I get a decent job, I think that it will take me about a year or two to pay my debt off, and then I will be free and happily living my life in peace and comfort.

In reality, I was jumping from one lousy job to another, joining one shitty culture, and becoming a victim of some weird toxic office politics of another all the fucking times. Shit was never easy or straightforward, and nothing was ever supportive of me. I’ve made many mistakes, a lot of wrong moves; I suffered, I was miserable, I was mad, and I have been crushed over and over again. For over ten fucking years, I’ve been living this illusion that one day I will be able to pay off my loans and finally live my life like a winner, like a champ. Ten fucking years of misery, it took me! Ten fucking years of not knowing shit! Ten fucking years of slavery! Ten fucking years of shitty and meaningless jobs! Ten fucking years of my youth fucking wasted! Ten fucking years to realize that I was misled all along the way.

I never knew what I wanted to do in my life, and even today, I am still questioning myself, trying to come up with some answers. My opinion and ambitions changed over time. I followed the masses’ path, and I am here now, working for Corporate America, building a career. Now I am learning that all that effort that I invested into my career, education, and life and all those borrowed loans that I am still paying off are just the beginning of the problem. I made a commitment back in my early twenties to borrow a shit ton of money I never had to pay for my very much overpriced education. I was hoping to pay back all the fifty-some thousand dollars I’ve got in debt in my first-second year at work. That was my dream and a bad one with that. It’s been over ten years since when I made my last payment on my school loan. The career and the money-making wasn’t an easy thing to accomplish. It wasn’t until about two years ago that I felt that I am making and saving any fucking money. Until then, I haven’t had even a hundred dollars to my name. It took me way too long to make up for all the debt I owed. Life was a bitch and I’ve learned all my lessons the hard way. Besides, who would ever imagine that this fucking Pandemic will come around, and every single principle of our lives will get fucked over, compromised, and everything will go haywire? How about all that job security and all those promises you’ve made, you fucking bitches?! How many people have just learned that jobs they spent their lives working are “nonessential,” and a lot of those not critical and not fucking existent anymore?!

The “nine-to-five” concept does not exist anymore in the Corporate world as it is never nine-to-five that you’ll actually be working. There is just so much more than that. We don’t have to commute to work, office, or various business meetings anymore. We are all stuck in our homes trying to make the best we can with what we have, and we are told to be lucky to still have jobs. Now, as I don’t have to be stuck in my fucking three-hour daily commute to work, I can work all these hours instead and be more productive. These corporate fucks know that, and they even acknowledge that, but then they never do shit about it. They want you to work more and be more productive than they can then justify your jobs, keep you employed in misery for as long as it is possible. They like it this way; this is working for them and for Corporate America. Now they can ask anything they fucking want and it better be done. Because people have to pay their rent, mortgage, and property taxes and all that shit, and they have no choice but to comply, bend over and get fucked. There is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. With our backs against the wall and our assholes bleeding, we work our way out of it day by day, and we are told we’re in this together, and we should be thankful. Let’s stick around, let’s be hopeful, let’s keep up the great work. And we fucking do.

My favorite writer, Charles Bukowski, once said, “If you’re losing your soul and you know it, then you’ve still got a soul left to lose.” I have learned recently what it means to have a “soul-crushing” job. I am learning now what it fucking takes to keep my sanity every day while being miserable as fuck and hoping to make it through yet another day. I have learned what it is to be a modern-day slave, being tied to that fucking job and not able to live my life, maintaining my lifestyle, living my dream, and spending the proper amount of time with my family. I have a job, and I am doing it, and I know what to do. But there is never enough. Nobody is good enough; we all need improvements and constant improvements, so we should never get too comfortable. Because if you get too comfortable, you’ll stop learning. If you are not challenging yourself all the time, you’ll be out of the fucking job. And this is the brutal truth that you indeed will be out of that fucking job eventually. It will end as it should not last forever as nothing ever does. The best we can do is to get ready for that moment until it comes, and when it does, we’ll say fuck it and move on with our lives and keep our sanity and soul. Bukowski was right, as long as you’ve still got a soul to lose.

I am now at the point where I am thinking that this education and career system is not what I imagined it would be. I am losing interest in my current job, and I don’t even want to look for any other jobs. I don’t know what to do because I am so uninspired by all this nonsense and chaos. I know that somebody has to feed my family and me and that I have to provide a better life for my child. And I am trying to. But as I am thinking about it, I conclude that I don’t want my son to go through this fucking mental rape as I did. I don’t want my kid to become inspired about his career shit early on and then do shit all his life that will eat his soul and mind. This just feels wrong. I don’t want to be that same “lying system” that convinced me to go to college to get a better job and have a better life. I don’t know if my life is getting better, but I know for sure that I don’t get much life because there is so much fucking work to do that I barely have any free time anymore. “They’re giving you no time instead of it all” is a line from John Lennon’s “Working-class hero” song, which tells all about it. So I came full circle, and I need to find my way out of it somehow. I need to find alternatives and unconventional ways of earning income but still maintain a healthy lifestyle and always do all the things I love to do and have a proper amount of time to spend with my family.

At the end of the day, we only get one life to live, and we have to take care of it. It is our decision, and it is up to us to decide what we should do. The main thing to keep in mind is as we’ll get older and looking back at our lives, we don’t say, “Fuck man, I’ve wasted so many good years of my life for nothing.”