Shut up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life: A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life, Second Edition, Revised & Updated

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SOMETIMES WORK IS JUST PLAIN WORK

Try as you might, there's just no way around it. At some point, you have to work. Work is a part of everyone's life. I haven't figured out a way to avoid it, though it seems to me that some have perfected it to an art form. Those aren't people you want to emulate, however. Work is a given, not just because it's the major source of your income but also because it's the major source of both your personal and professional fulfillment and satisfaction.

However, to those who say, “Just love what you do and you will never work a day in your life”—I say bull! Those people are idiots. No matter how much you love what you do, sometimes it's work! And sometimes it won't be fun. And sometimes you will hate it. Even if what you do is the true fulfillment of all the creative energy you have in your heart, mind, body, and soul, sometimes you will get tired of it and hate it. That is reality.

Here is the reality of work. You only really do what you do a small percentage of the time. In fact, if you look at just about any profession, you wind up actually doing the profession about 10 percent of the time, and the other 90 percent of the time you do the things that support the 10 percent.

For instance, in a sales job you only spend about 10 percent of your time actually selling. The other 90 percent is spent traveling to or from appointments, making phone calls, placing orders, going to meetings, talking to other departments, filling out paperwork, ...