#64: Bullshit job
Three years ago, I was trapped in a bullshit job.
David Graeber, a London-based anthropologist, came up with the term bullshit job in his book, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, where he described a phenomenon impacting a number of people all over the globe.
A bullshit job is a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case.
My work was pointless and had stopped satisfying me.
But it was not easy to quit.
One reason was I was getting paid a handsome salary to show my face. And second, I had no idea what else to do.
All my life, I was conditioned to work. While at the same time, a creative side of me wanted to express itself.
It took a lot of courage and mental shift to move from a competitive life to a creative life.
Today I am living the life I envisioned for myself.
When I started dreaming it, I didn’t think I could get to where I am today. I wanted to write books and teach others how to write. In less than three years, I achieved all that.
I wrote about my journey in my new book Dare To Create. It is part “my story” and part a “motivational” book for those who too want to ditch the competitive life to lead a creative life.
Yesterday, when I was giving it the last read before hitting the publish button, I thought how far I had come in a short period, and it was all due to the books, articles, blog posts I read along the way and the courage they gave me to make the transition.
No success is an individual effort; it is a cumulative effect of all the people who went the path before us and cared to share it with us.
Dare To Create is available for 99 cents for a short time. You can get it here.
That’s all from me this week.
Neera Mahajan
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