You are not your job.

So many things are so different than they were even ten years ago, it used to be a matter of pride and dedication to stay at your job for long chunks of time, fifty years, careers, people had careers. They stuck it out and they stayed with companies through thick and thin and they left with reasonable retirement accommodations. 

Then came in the era of the 401k and the millennials, and suddenly it was more about now and less about later, You could job hope because if you even cared to save for your retirement, you could do it on your own independent of your company. 

Then there is this group of people stuck in a gap between generations that are entering their mid thirties and if they are like me and the people I know they are stuck being defined by their jobs, they work long hours, they will even work from home when they leave work, and enter a blurred zone of what is downtime and what is work time. 

And I am here to tell you to stop it. We are not our jobs. 

We are people with interests and families, we are people who put in our time at work and we deserve that very little bit of coveted downtime. No matter if it is to sit home and watch TV or to go to concerts and shows or to just sleep, because we all know we aren't sleeping enough. 

We owe it to ourselves and our loved ones and even more importantly our cats, we owe it to them to leave work at work and no longer let it define us or control us. 

Our jobs are not tattooed on our foreheads either, we aren't born like in the game of Life into predetermined careers and lifestyles, we can change those things we aren't happy with. It may not be easy but we are the controllers of our fate and happiness. As a photographer who needed a break and took up a whole new field for a few years I am telling you, you can literally do whatever you want to. I am not saying you will be good at it but you are the only thing stopping you from seeing if you are. When we reach a point of unhappy in our careers maybe we need to try something new, If something isn't working there for you, maybe something elsewhere will. You don't need to make a million dollars a year to be successful, in my opinion, success comes from being happy to walk into work everyday you are there. It comes from coming home and not being so drained and exhausted your family suffers from your job too. Success comes more from a million tiny moments of happiness added up throughout your day much easier and faster than those pennies add up in your checking account. Notice I said checking because realistically, we aren't barely even using our savings accounts anymore, now are we?

Think about this if you still think I have had too much to drink before sitting down to write this, when you go to a funeral and I am certain most all of us have been to far too many, how many times has someone gotten up to speak and said, Jane was such a great accountant, Jane could really crunch some numbers like nobody else could. Or do they mention how Jane was a great mother and she was a kind person etc. 

Life and even death are not defined by your job or career but more the tiny moments that add up in between leaving work and returning, Work will still be there when you get back, unless you work with Milton and wont return his stapler, leave work at work, and if it makes you unhappy, don't do it anymore.