Is it Important to Love Your Job?

In an ideal world you would be doing a job you love, but this is not the experience of many people. Although there are some people who enjoy their job because it is challenging and gives them a sense of satisfaction; for other people a job is just a way of earning some cash so that they can afford to do what they want. For these individuals, it is the prospect of being able to enjoy themselves at the weekend that keeps them going. Everyone is different, though, and so there are those for whom money is not of primary concern.

It therefore depends on what kind of job you have and whether or not money alone is what keeps you turning up on time every day of the working week. Clearly, if you have invested quite a lot of time and money into gaining qualifications that will enable you to pursue a particular career, you want to end up with a job you love, rather than stuck in a factory packing goods into boxes. Likewise, if you have had an apprenticeship and developed specialist skills, you obviously want to be able to put these skills to good use, rather than being stuck in a dead-end job.

If you want to build a decent career, it definitely helps to love your job, because this will keep you focused on getting what you want out of it. If you hate your job with a passion, it is going to be a struggle to stay focused on doing everything necessary to achieve career success. If you loathe the work that is involved in your job, as well as the people you work alongside, it is obviously going to be a challenge to forge useful connections and to give your job 100 per cent of your effort. Thus, you may struggle with the pressure and the weight off expectation and discover that higher rates of pay are just not enough to keep you going.

However, at the other end of the spectrum, there are individuals doing unskilled, low-paid work who are content doing their job. They may be involved in providing a service and helping individuals, which makes them feel good about themselves. If you work with elderly or disabled individuals, you might not be paid very much and it can be stressful, but this may not bother you as much when you get a feeling of job satisfaction. Not all low-paid jobs come with job satisfaction, and many people just do these jobs because they don't require qualifications or experience.

At the end of the day, though, a job is a job and, whatever you do, it helps you to pay the bills and provides you with money to enjoy other things in life. Obviously, it is better to love your job than to hate it, especially since you probably won't get as stressed or depressed about your situation, but even if you don't like your job, there are people in a much worse position. You might hate your job, but at least you have a job and can still afford the essentials in life. Not everyone is that lucky, unfortunately, which is worth bearing in mind.