You're Unhappy In Your Job Because It's A Job, Not A Career

Let's be real: You need money in order to survive in the so called "real world." For some of us, we've landed amazing jobs after college that we scratched and clawed for.

For the rest of us, we take any job we can get so we aren't so completely dependent on our parents.

It's been my experience that one should stay at a job for as long as possible because you want to show you are stable, consistent, committed, the list goes on and on.

While this all my be true and beneficial, I'd like to call BS on the notion of job stability.

Too often, my peers and I find ourselves settling in jobs we don't like, that make us miserable, that we're embarrassed to speak about and are ultimately dead ends.

I'm only 25 years old, but I can tell you that in my short amount of time working full-time in the "real world," I have experienced every low one could experience in an entry-level job.

Of course, I could go on a tangent about why having a college degree means nothing anymore and and how my generation is being taken advantage of, but that's a different story for a different day.

My advice is this: Quit your job.

Every time I left a job that I was unhappy in, I had no regrets about it. I'm an adult navigating my way through societal pressures and standards and expectations, but I was constantly tired of working in environments that felt mundane, menial and insignificant.

It's great to have job experience and show future employers that you can stay at a job for more than a certain period of time, but at what cost to your own mental health?

My biggest pet peeve is when someone doesn't realize their worth or doesn't take action to better themselves.

As a Millennial, I'm pegged for a lot of things. And they're oftentimes labels that don't actually apply to me, and so I have to work twice as hard for half the amount of money I truly deserve.

Our worth is equivalent to the effort we put into the job that we are doing, but when the compensation is unequal to the effort, it places doubt in ones mind as to why should I work so hard if I'm only being paid x amount of dollars.

Take the risk and quit your job. Whether you stay in your job until you find another or you up and quit with the hopes employment will follow shortly after, don't think twice. Do it.

Make note that I never use the word career, rather the singular word, "job."

A job is a regular position of employment, but it also feels as if it has an ending.

With a career, it's a specific field/area of employment one continuously pursues and moves up in. If you're not in a career position, I highly suggest you work toward putting yourself in line to achieve that goal.

I never imagined myself being the type of person who has gone from job to job, and that's because I didn't quite know who I was or what I wanted to do. I took the time to figure that out, and along the way opened myself up to a world of experiences I wouldn't have had if I chose a predetermined path of how my life should be.

I have witnessed too many bizarre, strange, unimaginable things in the offices I've worked in that made me question why I was there on a daily basis.

Every time I found myself doubting why I go to my job in the morning, I realized it was because it was exactly that: It was a job, but it was not a career.

It always helps to look back. Oftentimes, you realize everything could have been done better or you pinpoint things you wish you could have changed. That is the advantage of hindsight.

Today, I am a man who has a lot more clarity on where I want to be in five years, the goals I want to accomplish and the field I want to be thriving in.

Sometimes it pays to take a risk and up and quit your job. There is not enough money in the world to make you truly happy, and if anyone tells you differently, they are lying to themselves.

The only regrets I have with regards to my journey is I didn't make the changes needed when I first had the doubts. Always trust your gut because only you know yourself truly.

Whether you're salaried or hourly, if your happiness and inner peace is drowned out by the job you do every day, that's the surefire sign it's time for a change.