You think you're trapped because you need the cash

"If you don't like your job, why don't you just quit?",  I ask. 

You rebuttal with "Yeah, like it's really that easy.  I need to pay my mortgage, feed my family, and make the car payment.  If I quit my job, I'll loose everything I have... and my family will be homeless."

"Why not replace your income when you quit your job?  Wouldn't it make more sense if you work on replacing your income first, and then quit your job?", I probe.

"Of course." you respond, "If I knew how to replace my income I would have already done that."

"You don't know any other ways of making money?  You must not be looking very hard...  or at least you havn't found anything that seems like it would be better than the crappy job you already have.  Does that sound accurate?"

"Of course I know of other ways to make money, but like you said, they are even worse than my current job, or they require skills I don't have." You exclaim.

"Now we're getting some where." I think to myself and reply, "Why don't you start working on getting the skills to do something you would enjoy more?"

And here is where the light bulb starts to turn on and you start to realize your REAL dilemma, reponding with: "I don't know for sure what I would rather do to make money.  There are so many options, and most of them require a lot of time, money, and energy to get started with.  What if I pick something new, go through all of the work to gain my new skills and then hate that job too!?!" 

and I reply with "So it sounds like you have started to realize your problem isn't your current job.  It's actualy your lack of knowing what it is that you really want to do with your life." 

and you relpy with a resounding "YES!  That's it.  My real problem is not knowing what would really make me happy.  If I only knew FOR SURE what direction I should go, I could start making some real improvements to my current work situation."  and as you continue to think you say to yourself:

"This may be a deeper issue than I thought.  Maybe my root problem is more about figuring out the purpose and meaning in my life than it is about my crappy job.  Maybe my crappy job is just a symptom of the real problem."

Would this conversation have gone differently if you and I were speaking to each other?  What part would have been different?  Please comment below.

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