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Follow Your Heart and Make The Break

Back to the salt mines. Another day, another dollar. It's the daily grind. It's punching the clock.

It's a supervisor you can barely tolerate getting on your case even though you are clearly five times smarter than she'll ever be.

It's middle management bungles. It's upper management cold-heartedness.

It's a loud factory floor or a tiny slate gray cubicle. Forty hours per week, plus overtime.

Occasional weekends.

If you are a good boy or girl, that hourly wage will inch up just fast enough to almost keep up with inflation every year and some day you may even join the ranks of salaried management and longer hours dealing with even more annoying people.

It's described as everything from a hassle to a prison.

It's a job and you might be tempted to get rid of it. That's probably why you are reading this ebook.

Unfortunately, along with all of the agony, the job also brings with it money. If you're lucky, it might bring a lot of money, health benefits and even a shot at retiring without starving to death.

Jobs mean money. Money, whether it's the root of all evil or not, makes the world go 'round and 'round.

Thus, the inmates refuse to attempt to escape. In some workplace version of the Stockholm syndrome, the hostage employees begin to trust and rely upon their oppressive boss overlords even though they recognize that the guys upstairs don't have their best interests in mind.

Even in this modern twenty-first century economy where people change treat jobs like disposable lighters-use it for awhile, then get rid of it-many spend their idle hours dreaming of a comfortable work prison. Some place they can tolerate long enough to make it to age sixty-five with some benefits. They don't even want to grin and bear it for several decades. They just want to bear it. That alone would be enough.

Even that can be hard.

There are some people who are willing to make a break for it. They visualize a future that doesn't consist of years of abuse capped off with little more than a stooped back and a gold-plated retirement watch.

When they daydream, they think about running their own show. They imagine not just making a living, but actually living. They don't want a new office or to work for the company across town. They want to own their own future and they want to sweeten the deal by working at home.

Others are already at home and are looking for work. Instead of trying to find a gig on the bus route, they may be ready to do their own thing.

Others may just be looking for a way to add a few bucks to the family coffer every week while being able to spend quality time at home parenting. Instead of forking over their slave wages for daycare, they decide they can be both a parent and a provider at the same time by effectively operating a work at home business.

Let's face it... many people feel trapped doing jobs they despise. You can see it in their faces. From the angst-ridden barista at any one of ten local Starbucks who could be making shrewd stock deals all day to the slow-moving housepainter who always wanted to be a chef, you encounter people who are working outside of their interests and skills just to collect a check.

Some people learn to compromise. They take solace in Mr. Holland's Opus and convince themselves that eventually all of that compromise will add up to something meaningful. They shove their interests and true desires to the back of their mind and try to retain focus on doing their job.

Yes, a few people are lucky enough to find employment that really matches their skill levels and attitudes nicely, but many more spend their time doing things in which they have only a marginal interest outside of the bi-weekly paycheck their efforts produce.

Though some will swallow the disappointment and frustration, those who decide to work at home will not. They opt to pursue their dreams and to find ways to make their skills and their "calling" into action.

It can be far more fulfilling than simply working for the sake of earning a salary. It imbues one's vocational life with great meaning and appeal.