Can i love my job? Oh, wait...

When we talk about love, most of us think of emotional affection between two people. We think of the greatest love- the one that mothers have for their children. We refer to intimacy. Romantic love : two lovers hugging and kissing under the sunset. Many of us (including myself) have disturbing memories linked to this word: I loved him and he broke my heart, he never told me he loved me and other endless drama (!!!).

But I have an honest question for you; how many of you, when I say the word “love” think of “work”.

Well, we have wasted so many beautiful terms in today’s urban dictionary – or maybe limited them- into solely allowing them to correspond to private life –behind closed doors- e.g. relationships, friendships etc. Such words are for example: emotions, feelings, passion, affection and most important, love!

Imagine: how much of a difference it would make if we loved our jobs. If the time we spend in our lives trying to find the one and ony perfect partner for a lifetime, we would also spend in stepping back, take a deep breath, observe our lives, listen to ourselves and find the one and only job that at this very moment in the course of our life, we love. Of course not unconditionally! There are some bills on the table…

We love our families. We love our partners. We love our dear friends. We cannot wait to finish from work, run to our home and see-hug-laugh-fight-sleep with our partner. We mostly feel like the time we have left in a day with them is very limited. The weekends; oh! the poor weekends! We try to fit everything and everyone on these weekends… And it’s never enough! Now, imagine again: imagine loving your job. Imagine doing something you really love. Everything would change.

Your mood will change: you are spending at work 8 to 9 hours per day. That is a lot! That is literally your whole day. However, if you are going to a destination for which you have positive feelings and passion and love, those hours will not feel like you are sentenced to prison for a couple of hours every day because you are a horrible person.

Even sleeping habits change! What I have come to realize for myself is that I am sleeping excessively late and in fact, I am not enjoying my sleep. It is all because I am trying to steal some time before I have to go again to work. I try to fit everything I love doing in 6 hours that I have left after freeing myself from work! That is hectic… That is stressful. I practically try to live those 6 hours…

And every morning that I wake up, well, let’s say I am not necessarily the happiest person on earth! But let me tell you that I cannot imagine this being the case with my dream job. And I will not take it too far: I cannot imagine it being the case when doing something I love. And if it still sounds too utopic, then I will be more realistic by suggesting finding something – one thing- that you truly love or could potentially love in your job. If you cannot find it then… you have to find another job!

It can’t be normal that every time someone is telling us “I love, love, love my job” we look at him like “whaaaat?”, “whats wrong with you?”.

It has happened to me a number of times and I sat down and thought of it. And I came to realize that it made me so angry for a simple reason: I wanted to be that annoying person myself. I wanted to be able to say, “I love my job”. To be the person who wakes up early, prepares coffee and breakfast and drives to work feeling happy. Or challenged. Positively or Negatively. Just feel! Because in the end of the day, that is how love is, full of feelings. Positive or negative.

Let us start reconsidering the definition of love and apply it to our professional lives. Because we only have one life to waste on boring, meaningless, empty jobs.