I'd be in their lab, reworking customer reference boards, working directly under one of their engineers. I never got the chance to go to college, and to get to this point is amazing. I'm deeply passionate about tech, and I'm super excited about this opportunity.
So I have a job where I'm a therapist, and also I have a job where I support other therapists.
I also train therapists and I train the people who look after other therapists.
I've been doing this a lot. I love every day of it. I cannot imagine doing anything else with my life. And if I won the lottery, I would still want to keep doing it.
Nah, there are dream jobs, reality just has this unfortunate habit of imposing itself on your dreams. The result being that even dream jobs can suck because of the bullshit that goes along with them.
My job is basically my hobby. I spend about 50 hours a week on my hobby - some of it structured for someone else, and some of it entirely for myself. The stuff for someone else is less fun, but still genuinely brings me joy.
Protip: it's never going to be enough. Your brain has this neat trick it does where it acclimates to a new normal after a while, so eventually you're right back to where you were, wanting more and better things.
Find something in your life that brings you happiness, that's a lot easier than chasing happiness through the employment you're forced to have if you want to survive in this shit hole.
Here’s a secret: the left path doesn’t exist. I have a great job that I love the actual work of. But people and bullshit beyond the minutiae get in the way and make me unhappy. I suspect every job is like that, I cannot fathom anything that isn’t. I imagine any answer to the contrary is backed up by independent wealth or outside funding. But please prove me wrong. Give me hope.
I've been working on weekends for a few months not because I have to (or Im pressured into it), but because it's a really interesting project and I'm having a great time figuring it out.
Here is some hope: You have a great job and you love the actual work! Some aspects of it are bullshit, some of the time at work you spend on mandatory bullshit, and bullshitters who detract from your happiness exist all around the world, in every industry. But:
All that doesn't completely cancel out the love you still have for your work - otherwise you wouldn't have phrased it that way, would you? Also a slice of good news is, you have some degree of control over how much you let the shitty aspects cancel out the good things. Admittedly, the control is never 100%. And sometimes, the bullshit and frustration can get overwhelming and does have the power to tip the balance into a minus. That's when it's time to leave. Prepare to ge into a new, more rewarding field now. That will give you a choice when you feel the moment has come (probably it's when you keep saying the above sentence to people in the past tense).
Facts. I have a job right now where I work 8 hours Friday then 16 and 16 Saturday Sunday. But for the rest of the week I'm completely off I could do whatever I want.
It's really looking at a delayed gratification scenario. You hate working but make good money and then eventually you enjoy having money. In the end, it can be a lot of suffering for the long term money.
I need to make a meme out of this, combined with the situation when realized that I had already, unknowingly, made that decision to be broke more than twenty years ago when realized I'd make a great teacher, and started going down that career path.