Guess you don’t spend much time in New York or New Jersey.
This.
That said, people do have professional and personal aspirations beyond “not living eating out of a dumpster”.
Since I don’t know the specifics of your situation, I can only talk about myself and my experience. It wasn’t too long ago, I felt the same way about myself. I kept trying for promotions and kept getting turned down. I would ask why and each time it was something different, it seemed like no matter how many hoops I jumped through, someone was throwing more out there. It was definitely dragging me and my attitude down a long dark road. One day I took a long honest look at myself, which, I found is harder done than said. For me, I had to stop giving myself excuses for the faults I noticed within. Once I did that, I started working on what I thought were my faults. An easy example was my attitude…it was pretty bad. I was doing the bare minimum and was only a team player when forced to do so. My theory was that “they” didn’t care about me, why should I care about them, this place etc. I made a point to be pleasant and went out of my way to help others. I started coming in early and would even bring in snacks for the office on occasion. I definitely felt like I was giving this place more than they deserved after “treating me so bad”; but I stuck to it. While I didn’t realize it right away, things were changing not only at work, but with me. People in general were nicer to me and while I was acting like I cared in the beginning, it soon became a habit and I didn’t have to work at it so hard and eventually it became natural. While there were other things I had to work on, I feel that the attitude change helped the most.
I quit feeling sorry for myself and quit telling myself that “I deserved that position, that office”, whatever. Nothing happened overnight but eventually I was given more responsibility and promotions.
Along the way, I found people that were willing to be a true mentor and I actually listened to them and used their advice to make small adjustments. I am now further up the chain than I thought I would ever be and it was mostly attributed to an attitude change, putting in more effort and realizing that things don’t change overnight.
I have only skimmed this thread so please correct me if I’m off base. It seems as if you’re defining yourself as a loser based solely on your career/workplace issues. Do you know that there are other ways you can define yourself? Do you have any interests outside of work? Did you know that being kind is the most important thing a person can achieve?
I’m actually a very nice person. I’m generous with my time and money.
Then you are not a “loser.”
For ‘interesting’, get a hobby. (I recommend reading - books are cheap.) The idea that work should be fun is one I’ve never understood - the whole reason they’re paying you is because you wouldn’t be there if they didn’t. It’s not a hobby, it’s work. If you want a hobby, get a hobby.
As for extra money, $30,000 to $50,000 a year is a hell of a lot of money and asking that that be dropped in your lap is a pipe dream. How much you make now is not my business, but if you make enough that asking for that much more doesn’t seem ridiculous, then you don’t need that much more. What you need, instead, is a budget. By following a budget you can figure out where your money is going and 1) make sure it’s where you want it to go, and 2) appreciate what you’re getting with it. It’s not too hard find that you have more money than you think, too - not because you actually have more, but because you waste less.
Considering what a large percentage of their waking hours most people spend working, it makes sense to at least want your job to be something you find at least somewhat interesting or enjoyable.
And it’s not that there are interesting jobs and dull jobs. Many jobs are of the sort that some people would find them a lot more interesting than other people would. Assuming there’s a nonempty intersection between the set of things you find interesting and the set of things you can get paid for doing, it makes perfect sense to look for a job in that intersection.
Yeah, but after all, he was saying what “would be perfect,” not what he was expecting to actually happen.
Yeah, I agree with this. I don’t think passion is required to have a successful career. But I don’t think someone can do a good job if they are bored with their work.
Also, without knowing the OP’s personal life, we don’t know if pursuing an interesting hobby is feasible. If he comes home to hours of care-taking duty (kids, elderly parents, etc.), then it is perfectly understandable why he would want to have interesting things to do during the work day.
I’m able to pay my bills and I do budget, shop sales on needed items, and frequently go without extra. The 30-50k figure would get me to the median salary point for my age/degree.
Of course they do. So do I. I’m not sure how that relates to or changes what I said.
Well, we all would like more money. The question is whether having your level of income makes you a loser, and if so, why you’re at that level of income.
I believe you’ve stated that you’re in your current job due to unfortunate events outside your control. Fair enough, that happens.
The point I’m not convinced of is whether having your current job makes you a loser. (Honestly I’m not sure what a loser is - and I’d be reluctant to accept any definition that doesn’t include myself, so take that as a starting point.) My working theory is that if your wage is sufficient to cover your expenses and allow a moderate amount of enjoyment in your life, then your wage doesn’t make you a loser. In my opinion.
I made a bad and fateful career decision in my early 30s that brought in a lot of money but destroyed my inner idea of self-worth. Then the career collapsed and the money went away. I spent a couple of years convinced I was an enormous loser. I daydreamed about making my suicide look like an accident so my wife and child could live off my life insurance.
I won’t go into everything that happened to turn my life around, but a lot of it had to do with recognizing that the past was the past and opening myself up to unexpected directions. I networked like crazy and met a lot of new people and, when they said positive and encouraging things, I chose to believe them.
Life continues to have its challenges and I still have dark days, but I don’t consider myself a loser anymore. What’s the takeaway? Fuck if I know. Maybe it’s just that you’re the only one who can label you a loser – or not.
I think that risk tolerance is a bigger part of it than that… there are probably lots more people who know about that kind of thing, but who aren’t willing to hang out their shingle and have the job volatility and lack of benefits that comes with contracting, than there are simply unimaginative people who don’t even think of it.
And that risk tolerance drives a lot of decisions for success, even if we’re not talking “life changing” decisions (even though they actually may well be). It takes some degree of gumption to be willing to leave a secure, if unappreciated and unspectacular job for something that might be better.
There’s also a certain… drive you have to have as well. I mean, most of the people I’ve known who’ve been above a certain level in companies or who own their own businesses have desperately wanted that success, or at least the perception of success/ trappings of success. Few people who are content with family life and a decent salary end up as executives or business owners.
That’s why success really has to be self-defined in terms of one’s own goals; you can’t really say that some beachcomber in Hawaii who barely makes ends meet selling tourists crap on the beach is unsuccessful, if his goals are to spend his time at the beach talking to people, and not necessarily rolling in cash. And who’s to say that the overstressed and unhappy law firm partner making 400k a year, but who drinks too much, doesn’t take care of his health, and works too many hours to spend any time with his family is actually successful, just because he commands a high salary.
"Loser"is not an description. It’s a pejorative slur. That we sometimes call ourself that, doesn’t change that. Calling yourself a loser is abosing yourself, scolding yourself, not describing yourself.
Also, the word "loser"is, in a way, the closest the English language has to an actual curse. In Africa, when the witch doctor tells a victim he has bewitched the victim’s juju or whatever his strength or luck or worth is, the victim can feel like really some kind of strenght or luck or worth has been taken from him. Just by the witch doctor’s words.
We westerners would scoff at that idea. But calling someone (or yourself) a loser in the English language has much the same effect.
Unfortunately, that’s how it works. If you’re born with an IQ of 70, you’re kinda screwed. The same is true of personal characteristics which are extremely hard to change, or your looks, which can hold you back, or other things that keep one from getting ahead that are “unfair”.
I have several problems. I have Tourette’s, I’m ugly, I have bad teeth, and I don’t drive due to the fact I’m not very good about it. Oddly enough, society does not see fit to reward my selflessness about not driving. They just wonder why I don’t do it anyway. What’s a few extra road fatalities here and there?
On the good side I’m tall, I have a good voice, good diction, I’m white, I’m male, in better health than average, my weight has gotten high but I’m not obese, and my IQ is pretty high. It’s all about playing the cards you’re dealt. I work from home, so no one has to look at my ugly mug and I don’t have to worry about driving.
Poker is a great metaphor for life. You play your hand as best you can.
As long as you are going to judge your “worth” by comparing yourself with others, you’re always going to be a loser in my book, since you will always find someone “better” than you. When my older brother turned 45, he was very depressed because he was hung up that our father had accomplished so much by that age and he had done nothing notable. To this day, he avoids situations where he feels others will make judgements about his “success”. For this reason, I haven’t seen him in a decade and it’s quite possible I’ll never see him again, although I call him fairly often. He just doesn’t want to see what I have accomplished and he certainly doesn’t want me to see his situation.
Do you think Elon Musk broods much about how he isn’t as successful as, say, Bill Gates? Now, that’s an extreme example, but there are millions of people out there that are satisfied with themselves even though they will freely admit that others have it better or that they are not living up to their full potential. Sure, those people are frustrated when things don’t go their way and wish they could afford some things they can’t, but they don’t let that get in their way of doing what they want.
The trick to not being a loser is to learn how to be satisfied with yourself. That doesn’t mean you have to roll over and let others walk all over you, it means to constantly work to make things better for you, but don’t let the fact that someone else is doing it better be a reason to keep from trying. It isn’t a matter of doing it better than anyone else, it’s a matter of doing it good enough for you.
You make your own happiness. I know, an old, tired cliche, but people who feet that they are losers often view it as that and ignore the meaning. You are the only one who can make yourself happy. It’s not that nobody else is going to do it for you, it’s that nobody else can do it for you.
Yep, and in general, thinking in terms of “winners” and “losers” is very common in people who people get stuck in a rut, in both my own life, and seeing it happen to others.
If you call yourself a loser you’ll ignore the positive things you already do that you could build on.
And whenever you try some method to improve yourself, you’ll give up very quickly when you see it wasn’t a magic fix that immediately made you a “winner”.
Of course, many self-help “gurus” will paint reality this way; claiming you can flip losers to winners with one simple process is great for selling books.
I’d like to add to this if I may, since I was out of town, and on my phone and running low on data when I posted this,
The key to my general happiness was when I realized this, my life is what it is, maybe I’m not going to be the smashing financial success, the CEO or Executive Assistant to the CEO, when I realized, and just as importantly admitted that to myself, I found myself to be much happier, much more stress free and surprisingly I soon found myself having more and better success finding better more fulfilling jobs