Work work work work work
If you tell me that you don’t have Rihanna and Drake’s song in your head when you read this title, then we would probably not be friends in real life … Okay, I am joking … Well kind of. But seriously, if you don’t know it listen to it here :)
Now that you listened to this masterpiece, we can initiate a discussion together. I wanted to start this blog with a work topic as it is where we spend most of our time. I either work or sleep and in between these two activities, I try to have some quality time, but I am usually too tired for this. So I end up staying home scrolling through my Instagram and watching Youtube videos. Yep I don’t have a personal TikTok account so I don’t mention it here, but I am sure I could also spend a tremendous amount of time there as well.
Adult life
Do you recognise yourself ?
Then I welcome you - even though you didn’t know the song, I accept you here. Yes, I mean it, you can stay. I accept you here because we are on the same boat. That boat where life is a big question mark, and you don’t know where to start questioning, so in the end, you decided not to. Because let’s be honest, closing your eyes is easier than actually sitting down in front of your own fears and trying to work through them (Oh no, work again …). That boat is the boat of life, and we are here, together, to go through questions, to go through the whys and hows in order to - maybe - get to a conclusion. There might be no conclusion, I am not here to give the answer. First of all because I don’t think there is one true answer, there might be several ones, your answer might not be the same as mine. But at least let’s question things together and if you view things differently, please leave a comment!
Now that we have agreed you are in the right place, where should I start on the work topic? I can start by giving some context of where I am at. First of all I want to stress out that I am in a very fortunate position as I have a job where I am fully flexible, I work from home, and I am well-paid. You are probably thinking « Oh wow such a gem of a job, why is this woman starting her blog writing about work? ». Well, the problem here is that I am NOT happy and that, one day, burnout knocked at my door introducing itself to me. Yep I am in the middle of a burnout, there you go, I said it.
With that being said, let’s go back to giving you some context. I live in a city (I always did), with a fully remote job and let me say it again, I am well paid. My salary is a big topic as when I moved company and position, I almost doubled my salary. I am not someone whose intention is to earn more and more money. It kind of just happened. And I am so thankful to be in that position. I consider my relationship to money to be sane. What is important to me is to be able to do what I want to, without having to think too much about the budget. But I am pretty careful with money. I do like fashion but usually don’t follow trends, I like to buy second hands clothes and I keep my clothes for a very long time. To give you an idea, while I am writing these lines, I am wearing my fathers sweater, a pair of pants that I have since twelve years and a t-shirt that I probably bought six years ago. In short, I did not double my lifestyle when I doubled my salary and I am more than happy the way I currently live. I don’t need more.
But then this corporate job that brought me that money started to feel like a trap. After some months of not being happy, my burn-out has been diagnosed and it was so hard for me to actually face the fact that this job might not be the right one for me. You know in our current society there is this corporation ladder. You study, you get a job, and from there you grow within your job, become a manager … But then it is very seldom to hear that someone does not want to go up that ladder, and that maybe the first step of the ladder is good enough for them. Or even worse, the ladder they want to climb is another one, and that the corporation ladder is not the one. OUCH !
Looking back, I think I have always been the one that happened to go up in the corporation ladder by mistake, without a real plan in my head, and without feeling like it was 100% what I wanted. But I did it because it was in front of me, I was good at it, it made sense at the time so I just went with the flow without questioning it much… until I got enough and burnout showed itself to me.
I studied most of my life to get to the point where I am at, on paper I am very successful with a great job, great money, in a country that offers great possibilities, but I am not happy.
I just put a lot of different thoughts into this post. I will question and go deeper on every topic. This is the start of a long period of questioning. How will this end ? I don’t know, but if I triggered your attention, you can follow my journey here as I will be posting often !
Yours truly,
MyUncuratedSelf
Also don’t hesitate to follow me on Instagram and TikTok (I said I didn’t have a personal TikTok but I did create one for my blog) as I will also be posting content over there: