100 Day Challenge: Day 39
Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving!
A few things I'm thankful for:
- Being able to spend time with my nieces and nephew
- Spending time with my family
- Eating tasty food
- Have a warm blanket to cover up with
- Being able to come up with ideas and pursue what I want to
I was thinking about the idea of using the fact that I hate my job as motivation to push forward and get done with school quickly. I was reminded of a movie I saw a while ago: Run Fatboy, Run! What really came to mind a scene toward the end of the movie where the main character is faced with what seems to be an insurmountable obstacle. He stares at the obstacle and looks as though he's about give up, then he starts thinking about his life. All of his past mistakes, failures, and areas he's just plain not happy about start flashing through his mind. As he thinks about them suddenly a new resolve shows on his face and he pushes through the obstacle.
The real idea that comes to mind is to become dissatisfied with life, meaning: don't spend time living in the past or being comfortable with where you're at.
I had a conversation last week about getting stuck and really how easy it is to let time slip away. We were talking about production jobs (there are a lot of production facilities in the area I live in). It's easy to get a job in one of those places, the starting money is pretty good for the area especially as unskilled labor. So someone gets a position in one of these facilities, thinks: "I'm going to buy a car, I can afford it." So they buy a car and keep working there to pay it off, during that time period they get married and buy a house. Before they know it, they've been working a temporary job for ten years and don't have many marketable skills. Then it's not nearly as convenient to get more training to move into another field.
This situation hits close to home for me, for a while I worked at a cheese plant and made what I thought was decent money. I almost got a permanent position there, but luckily it didn't work out. That was after I spent a few years installing hardwood floors for a living, something I'm glad I know how to do. But I'm glad I don't do it for a living anymore. Then there was my stint at an electronics manufacturer, I ended up getting laid off there. That was really the best thing that could have happened. From there I went to the local tech school for a couple years. It was because of my interest in programming and being in the right place at the right time that I got a job testing robot at Autonomous Solutions. I ended up getting laid off from there too, now I'm at my current job which I hate. But really I have this chain of events to thank for making me dissatisfied with my situation.
Getting laid off from the electronics plant gave me motivation to say to hell with menial labor. Then working at ASI helped to intensify a love of technology. Which really brings me to wanting to push into a job where I can let my nerd lust go wild. While my current job is in IT, there's really nowhere to go with it. I have acquired another set of useful skills, but lately it feels like my only real challenge at work is keeping my boss off my back (See the movie: Office Space). I really don't have any motivation to improve at what I do there.
Become dissatisfied with life and if "difficulties" come up remember they are ultimately for your benefit to put where you want to be.