It's Sunday evening and depression is setting in.  In less than 12 hours your alarm clock will start pummeling you.  You'll try, unsuccessfully as always, to ignore the inevitable.  After bashing the snooze button a few times too many you'll be in a mad rush to get to the job you hate.  You'll suck it up. You'll put on your best fake smile and count the minutes 'til a brief evening's respite.  The day after tomorrow you will do it all again.

But why do you waste precious hours of your short life doing something you resent?

Quit your job!

You do not want to look back on your life one day and realise you spent most of it in a job you detested. Have some courage and quit your job!  Or at least start looking at other options and resign when you've found something.  Stop making excuses and stop coming up with reasons not to quit.  Screw the mortgage (sell and rent!), don't buy that new car (freedom is loving your rusty old clunker because it's paid for) and swap Sushi Saturdays for half price Spur burgers on a Monday.  Find a way to make it happen.  Your life is slipping away…

Do you have an attitude problem?

This article is not about quitting your job, but rather about learning to love it.  With the economy still struggling to recover, it might be tough finding a new one.  Also, where does the problem really lie?  Does your job truly suck or do you need a change of perspective?

You are so incredibly fortunate to have a job!

Even if you're being paid peanuts at least you get a regular pay cheque.  You don't live in a shack and you don't go to bed hungry, something that millions of other South Africans can only dream about.

Don't waste energy cursing a situation that is the envy of so many others around you.

In a country where millions face grinding poverty it's a worthwhile exercise to take a moment to think about how lucky you are to have your shitty job.

The universe doesn't owe you a thing and learning to be grateful is the most important step to being not only happy at work but also with life in general.

"The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one." — Oscar Wilde

Frame your job as something meaningful to others

The cleaning lady might find it hard to enjoy her work if she merely viewed it as "keeping the office tidy and clean".  However, by considering her job in relation to others she might begin to find it more meaningful.  "I am the cleaning lady and I am absolutely vital to every single person working here.  Without me the place would quickly degenerate and we wouldn't be productive at all.  The place would smell and we'd all soon be miserable.  My work here is absolutely vital as I keep it clean and pleasant for the people who work here."

"Keeping the office clean and tidy" is not meaningful, but "making it nice for others to work here" is.

I view my job as providing information that others find interesting and helpful — I want you to be financially free, but mainly I want you to be happy — and I believe that relating to my job in this way makes it meaningful.

How many people does your work touch?  Whether you are picking fruit or counting beans, if the highest purpose of your work is helping others then you'll have a much greater chance of loving it.

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