You might love your work as much as Jill Abramson loved hers, to the point that you wear your love not just on your sleeve but in a tattoo on your shoulder. But your work may not — cannot — love you back the same way.
I noticed there seem to be two camps in ER(E): Those who love their jobs and probably wouldn't quit but still want to be FI and those who are burnt out/hate their jobs and can't wait for ER.
I guess I'm somewhere in the middle (though probably leaning toward the latter. I don't love my job but I don't hate it. The main reason I'm actively seeking ER is because of the unpredictability of any work situation. That's one thing people in the former camp should realize.
In my past two jobs I've started out loving the workplace (I do really like what I do for a living). Then "changes" occurred (mostly in the form of personnel/administration) and I ended up hating it. Right now my industry is pretty...in flux, so the article above speaks to me even more.
There's also a steady migration from the former [love] camp to the second [hate] camp. We have examples of that in the journals and I did it too over a period of a few (3-5) years. I wonder whether the most stable position is in the middle of neither loving it nor hating it but just living with it. I have noticed that those who love their jobs and put their whole life into are also more prone to burnouts.
I wonder if discovering ER/E leads to that Jacob. I know that before I discovered ERE I had pretty much succumb to the idea that I was stuck in my job for the next 30+ years and I might as well make the best of it.
Now that there is a, much earlier, light at the end of the tunnel, things have started to bug me more. I tend to think of all the things I could be doing instead of "being a warm body" behind a desk all day.
Of course, some people might go the other way and not let the little things get to them as much, knowing they only have to deal with it a short while.
jacob wrote:There's also a steady migration from the former [love] camp to the second [hate] camp. We have examples of that in the journals and I did it too over a period of a few (3-5) years. I wonder whether the most stable position is in the middle of neither loving it nor hating it but just living with it.
I think this is the place to be, i didnt get this so much from reading the ere book as from reading a book like your money or your life and coming to the realization that the trade i was making in career wasnt worth the amount of life i was giving up. the ere book was just the vehicle to the fast track of becoming FI.
Knowing now that continuing to work is just the thing i do to be free from it means i just live with it most days.