BM TO TGIF

When you first learned the days of the week, do you remember having a favorite? Do you have a favorite now? Might it be Saturday or Sunday?

Consider the view many people hold about the typical work week. Starts off with "Blue Monday," ends on "Thank God, It's Friday," and in the middle is "Hump Day" (which gets you over the hump from "Blue Monday" to "Thank God It's Friday"). And then there are Tuesday and Thursday which may very well be the same day but spelled differently.

A survey, in a long list of surveys that didn't need to be conducted, concluded that only three percent of workers considered Monday as their favorite day (Maybe they had work weeks of Wednesday through Sunday?)

How many people do you know whose work lives revolve around weekends, vacations, retirement and death? Isn't it strange that so many people are worried about losing jobs they didn't want in the first place and don't much like now?

An employment study determined 59% of the workforce did not consciously choose their jobs. They either got started through chance circumstances, took the only jobs available, or were influenced by friends or relatives. Another study had 60% of the participants stating they found work "dull and boring." If these studies are anywhere close to accurate, why so much concern over job security?

Do you spend BM through TGIF looking forward to the weekend and then come back to work on BM and can't remember what you did on the two days you were so anxiously waiting for?

Are you working only for perceived financial and emotional security? Or do you demand fulfillment, happiness and pleasure from your occupation?

People's concern over losing jobs that give them meaning and provide fulfillment, happiness, and pleasure is understandable. Those folks have found a harmony between personal purpose and organizational goals. Losing such a job might hurt for awhile, but having been bitten by the fulfillment bug, these people will soon be back to doing what makes them happy.

Workers' concerns over losing financial and emotional security are also understandable, but misplaced. They are setting themselves up for the motherlode of negative stress by putting something as valuable as their security into the hands of organizations they don't control. If they were to lose their jobs, they would have to rely on another organization they do not control to provide their security fix -- an unenviable and tail-chasing position in which to be.

Any of us, at any time, for any number of reasons could find ourselves "occupationally challenged." But if we know what we really love to do, our condition is merely temporary.

Lesson: If you can't get excited about, passionate for, and committed to what you do for a living, you lose nothing of real importance when you don't do it anymore.