Congratulations – you’ve graduated from school! You have also sent out numerous applications and gone through glorious and stressful interviews with middle-aged people named Stan and Peg. You are dressed in your business-casual best and ready to crunch some numbers and push some buttons.
Welcome to prison: you are now officially employed.
You are a doctor, teacher, lawyer, accountant, sales rep, or even a retail clerk. It doesn’t matter what your title is. The point is, you are now self-sufficient, and you are earning enough money to feed, clothe, and shelter yourself, and perhaps care for people who depend on you as well. You also have traded away 70% of your free time and given your supervisor direct control over what you do with this time.
And they say that slavery ended 100+ years ago.
But, let’s back up. Why do I rank a lawyer on the same level of professional development as a retail clerk? How can both professions share the same stage when one makes ten times the salary (or more) of the other?
Read on for my explanation.
The Second Stage
I want to know something about you.
Do you love your job?
If you cannot answer that question with a resounding “yes” then you can do better. No. You owe it to yourself and other people you share this planet with to do better.
I know it’s hard to hear those words, and you might even balk at them. Most people who are unhappy will fiercely cling to their security blankets when they are threatened. I’m sure one of the following thoughts/fears went through your head when you read “you can do better.”
- How could I do better? There is nothing else out there for me.
- I’m not good enough (smart enough dog-gone it!) to do better.
- Work is supposed to be hard sometimes!
- Nobody loves their job.
- A job is there to pay the bills.
- I need this job or I’ll be on the street!
- I need this job or I won’t be able to support my family.
- This website is full of bad advice.
To all of those automatic negative responses I will say this: none of them are true. (I certainly hope the last one isn’t!)
You CAN do better. I promise you.
The problem with our culture is that we are told from an early age (stage 1) that we need to play by the rules to survive. That we need to go to school, work hard, concentrate on a profession, perhaps switch companies occasionally, and then eventually settle down until we are 60-some years old and have amassed a large amount of savings.
This is programmed into us as a worthy goal from the time we are kids.
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Stage 1 – Learning to Earn |
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Stage 2 – Working for Others |
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Stage 3 – Self Connection |
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Stage 4 – Building Your World |
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Stage 5 – Passionate Living |
Why This Model of Work is Bad
I will repeat what I stated in Stage 1 – Learning to Earn: you are an amazing individual. You have gifts, talents, and a purpose for being here.
Somewhere along the way from the first stage to the second many of us lose site of who we are and what we really want to give to the world. We focus so much on making money, pleasing our superiors (conditioned from our days of earning good grades in school) that we put ourselves into boxes of fear and worry. Sure, you might tolerate your job. You have adapted over time to long hours of sitting (or hauling heavy machinery if you are in construction) and dealing with your boss telling you what to do and ordering you around. It’s par for the course.
Just because this is what you are used to doing doesn’t mean it is the only way.
Below I will refute all your thoughts and fears (from above) about taking a better path.
The List of Fears
1. How could I do better? There is nothing else out there for me.
There is. It takes persistence, perseverance, and dedication, but it is possible for everyone to love their careers. You just have to make the leap from thinking about it as a job to thinking about it as your passion and your purpose. And you also need to make the leap from thinking about your work as a means to make a living to a means to make a difference.
Make these two leaps and you will love what you do. Sure it is easier said than done. But nobody said life was supposed to be easy. In fact, if you are doing something challenging, I’d argue that you are doing something right.
2. I’m not good enough (smart enough dog-gone it!) to do better.
All Stuart Smalley jokes aside, this is probably the primary reason you are where you are. Some people see personal limitations as an invitation to stop what they are doing and settle. Others see them as an invitation to challenge themselves and grow beyond these limitations.
Which camp do you want to be in?
Make yourself good enough and smart enough! The human mind is very adaptable. It is possible to change your career mid-stream if you are unhappy. It will take some learning, but you can always learn a new skill.
3. Work is supposed to be hard sometimes!
There is a difference between hard work and unnecessary suffering through the best years of your life. Hard work for a purpose and with passion fueling this purpose is wonderful.
Some of us have this whole “Protestant work-ethic” thing down to a science. It’s as if work is only valid if you’ve had to sacrifice something along the way, or you’ve had to suffer.
This is a load of hooey. I’ll give you some real advice: Quit whipping yourself and do something that matters to you. You don’t owe anyone anything, and your work is not going to be any better off if you are suffering while doing it. In fact, your work will ultimately suffer because the passion you have for doing it will die.
4. Nobody loves their job.
Give me a break.
While you may be surrounded by people who don’t love their jobs, did it ever occur to you that this is perhaps because you are asking the wrong people? Namely the very people with whom you share a daily trip to the office?
Get away from the water-cooler at work, quit complaining and talk to some people who DO love their jobs! Learn from them and be inspired. You are better than this.
5. A job is there to pay the bills.
One day perhaps we will move beyond the link between our profession and our need to make a living. But until that day, our society runs on this system. So what do we do about it?
First, if you have this attitude, you need to change it. Sure, the main reason you are working 9-to-5 may be that you can make a living. But let me ask you this: If someone just handed you your annual salary (guaranteed) for the rest of your life but you had to quit your job or profession, would you?
If you said “yes” to this question, you’ll never graduate from stage 2 and be able to keep your job.
If someone asked me this question, I would say no. There are other people out there like me. I’ll post some examples on this website (those of us who are in stages 3-5 do exist.)
6. I need this job or I’ll be on the street!
You have family/friends, right? Worst case scenario: you have to live with a family member or friend for awhile. Second worst-case scenario: you work at a lower-level job for awhile until you get back on your feet.
You don’t need a job you hate. You need to find a way to a better career. Quit living in fear.
7. I need this job or I won’t be able to support my family.
This is the same excuse as the one above it, just disguised as something different. Just because you have a family doesn’t mean you can’t work on finding a way to a better career. While you are in your current job you owe it to yourself to do some research on how you can make a living doing something more meaningful to you.
It will take more time, because you are responsible for others, but that doesn’t mean you should just resign yourself to misery!
Your family will ultimately thank you for it, because you’ll be more of a joy to be around if you love what you do!
You Are in The Second Stage if…
Most adults fall into this stage. It is the place we are trained to be from an early age, and once we get there not too many of us successfully “reach for the stars” and grow beyond it. Perhaps we don’t need to. In fact, some of us are probably happiest working for someone else and taking orders. There is a stifling sort of comfort in not having to make your own decisions.
The following checklist will give you an idea of general characteristics of somebody in stage 2. If you have more than 2 of these characteristics, then you are a genuine 9-to-5er!
People in Stage 2 tend to…
- Have someone they can call “boss”
- Have a work schedule that is set for them
- Be in a situation where if they lost their job they would need to find another one to survive
- Have co-workers instead of clients
- Have to go to a physical place of employment where they do their work (an office, school, hospital, construction site etc.)
- Be unable to answer the question “Do you love your job” with a “Yes”
How to Enter the Third Stage
You’ve come to the right place! 
The Great Office Escape is full of useful ideas and thoughts on how to escape the rat race and find a more meaningful career. Because I recognize that so many people are trapped in jobs that they hate, I know that it isn’t an easy thing to do.
The 3rd stage is all about that quest that we make in order to escape the rat race. It is where we connect with ourselves, have a mission, and set out on this mission.
In part 3 of this guide I will have some true stories of people working their way out of stage 2 and into stage 3. Whether or not stage 3 leads to stage 4 depends on how hard you work and if you are willing to take a few steps back while slowly moving forward. It isn’t easy!
Entering stage 3 might look something like this:
You wake up and decide that since you are such a good writer, you are going to get out of your awful desk job and make a living as a writer. This is your goal, and you are going to set out to achieve it. Never mind that other people (who are themselves trapped in stage 2, so they are really being defensive) think it is a silly idea, or are saying “nobody makes it as a writer,” you know what you want.
Of course, not people who go off to make “The Great Office Escape” choose a path that is more difficult. Starting a business can be very realistic and practical. Sure, it’s hard work, but I would argue that it is more practical to work hard at something you are good at than toil around and rot in an office all day.
You do value your life, right?
Resources
Here are some articles that will help you if you are in this stage:
- A Very Bad Career Choice
- Escape the Office Before It’s Too Late
- How to Call in Sick to Work
- Following the Crowd
- Freelancing Your Job
Click Here for the next article in the series: Stage 3 – Self Connection
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