You Don’t Settle When It Comes To Love, So Don’t Settle With Your Career Either

When it comes to relationships, you have high standards. You hold out for someone who deserves you. Someone who is going to treat you right. Someone who is going to bring you happiness, because you know how much you have to give, you know how much you deserve to earn.

You refuse to date anyone beneath you, because you know you can do better than that. You refuse to settle when it comes to love, because you know your own worth, so why would you settle when it comes to your career?

It’s true that you don’t need a relationship to survive, but you do need a source of income. You do need to bring home a biweekly paycheck to cover your rent and food and entertainment, which is why you pull yourself out of bed every morning and tromp off to a job you hate.

It’s why you keep showing up on time, doing the same mundane things day after day after day while wishing you were anywhere else. It’s why you keep telling yourself that you’re doing the right thing by staying there. Chasing after your real dreams would be irresponsible. You would end up living in a box. You would end up disappointing everyone around you.

You’ve given up on doing what you’re passionate about, what brings you genuine joy, because you are worried about failing. You are worried about being unemployed and homeless, about wasting your degree, about wasting your life away. 

But you can’t think like that. You can’t convince yourself that it’s impossible to find a job that you actually like. To make money doing something that you would gladly do for free.

It might not be easy, it might not be a short road, but it’s entirely possible.

Stop settling when it comes to your career. Stop assuming that it’s normal to complain about your boss and your commute and your coworkers and your work as a whole. Stop thinking that only kids chase dreams and adults are mature enough to let them go.

So what if the career you’ve been daydreaming about since you were little seems unrealistic, unobtainable? You should still chase after that dream. You should still put your effort into it because you are going to regret it if you let that dream slip out from between your fingertips.

That doesn’t mean you should quit your day job and lose your rent money. It doesn’t mean you should give up your paychecks so that you can pursue your passion twenty-four hours per day.

It means that, if you’re really passionate about something, if you’re really serious about turning it into a career, then you should practice it whenever you have a day off. Whenever you have a free hour. Whenever you find the time, whether it’s during long weekends or during short lunch breaks. A little practice is better than nothing.

It’s better than knowing that for the rest of your life, you’re going to keep mindlessly working at a job you can’t stand.