Why Am I Here (at work)?. Well, that’s not quite it.
By: Lincoln Olson
Tags: Money, Wealth, Finance, Work, Investing

I hate working.

Well, that’s not quite it.

I hate the idea of trading my time for money, especially the best part of every day (8 am to 5 pm) for arguably the best years of my life (22 to 65).

I wake up at 6:43 (yeah, I’m one of those people), shower, shave, brush my teeth, get dressed, grab a quick bite to eat and pour myself a cup of coffee as I scramble out the door, rushing to a place where I’ll spend the next 9 hours but wouldn’t choose to be for 9 seconds if it were up to me. Wait, is it not up to me?

(I read online that good posts break up their text with pictures, I believe this automatically deems my post as “good”)

Don’t read what I’m not writing: I have nothing against my employer, my coworkers, or my work. My beef is against the concept of work. Not work in general (I believe we were created with a desire to work), but what we’ve created work to be.

We, the collective human race (who I’ve just decided I have the authority to speak on behalf of), are deeply unsatisfied people. As you’ve probably figured out by now, I believe it is, at least in part, due to our jobs. The jobs that we spend over 1/3 of our days in our lifetimes at.

But that’s just the way the world works.

At least, that’s what we’ve been told.

I’m starting to realize that’s not good enough for me. There’s got to be a different way, a better way.

Given that I’m the one writing the article, you may be assuming I have the answers to the questions I’m asking. At this exact moment, I don’t. Please excuse me as I think through this in the remaining portion of the post. Maybe we’ll get lucky and somebody else will benefit from my half-baked brain dump.

Why do I have a job?

Money.

At the risk of sounding completely shallow, if I’m honest with myself that’s why I have a job. I don’t love my coworkers that much (despite what I tell them), Quickbooks isn’t that much fun to do payroll in, my boss isn’t that good of a guy. Sure, there are some fulfilling parts about my job and I’ve met some great people at the different places I’ve worked, but those were not my intentions when looking for employment.

I have bills. I have responsibilities. I have dreams and goals and a desire to retire one day (working so I don’t have to work any longer, I believe irony is the right word for that).

Ok, so I need money to pay for stuff, the world says to get a job but I know that’s a trash solution, so what else is there?

After a quick Google search, I believe I have the solution: paid surveys. Apparently I can make up to 15 cents an hour if I’m really fast, and I don’t even have to leave my couch!

For real though, if we were all just a Google search away then we wouldn’t have jobs still.

I’m going to be honest, I don’t have the answer yet. Stocks, real estate, legitimate ways that have been proven successful over time sound great, but these are wealth builders, not income generators. I don’t have any money — makes it hard to buy duplexes or have a $500,000 dividend portfolio.

Cash flow, that’s what I need. That’s what my job provides (about $3,000 a month after the government takes their share — more on that later though). That’s cash flow, albeit trash cash flow (trashflow, sorry, couldn’t help it).

My goal: replace it.

More on this, coming soon…