You Don't Hate Your Job. You Hate Needing It.

I hate my job. The strange thing is, my job is actually quite simple. The workload is manageable and there is quite a lot of free time in between. I am not constantly stressed by deadlines, I don't work crazy hours, and on most days I can leave work on time. If I were to describe the job to someone else, they might even tell me that I have it pretty good.

So I asked myself frequently: if the job is really not that bad, why do I hate it so much?

Eventually, I came to accept that maybe I don't actually hate the job. What I hate is the routine and lifestyle that come with having a job. Waking up early, getting ready, travelling to the office, spending most of the day there, going home, sleeping, and then doing the same thing again the next day. Five days a week, week after week.

Yes, I have free time during work, sometimes quite a lot. But free time in the office is not really free time. I am still at work and still being monitored to some extent. I can't simply decide that there is nothing to do and go home. I can't go for a two-hour lunch, take a nap, run some errands or spend the afternoon working on something else. I can do some personal things during the quiet periods, but they have to be done tactfully because, ultimately, I am still being paid to sit there.

That was when I realised that what I really hate is not the work itself. I hate that I need this life.

And the reason I need it is very simple: money.

If I didn't need the salary, I suspect my feelings towards my job would be completely different. An easy job with plenty of downtime and a decent salary is actually a very good arrangement when you know you can walk away whenever you want. But when you need that salary to maintain your life, the same arrangement starts to feel very different.

You wake up early because you have to. You report to the office because you have to. You spend eight or nine hours there because you have to. Holidays need to be planned around your leave entitlement. Appointments have to fit around working hours. Even something as simple as wanting to sleep for another two hours on a Wednesday morning is not really your decision.

In exchange, money arrives in your bank account every month.

For most of us, that money pays for almost everything that makes our lives possible. Housing, food, bills, insurance, children, holidays and all the other expenses that accumulate as we get older. The salary becomes so deeply connected to our lifestyle that eventually it becomes difficult to imagine life without it.

This is where I think a lot of dissatisfaction with work actually comes from. We assume that we need to find a better job, a better boss, a more interesting industry or perhaps start a business. Sometimes those things really are the answer. But I suspect for many people, changing jobs doesn't solve the underlying problem because the basic arrangement remains the same. You still need to wake up, report somewhere and exchange a large portion of your time for money.

A higher salary doesn't necessarily solve it either. In fact, it can make the situation more difficult. As our income increases, our lifestyle tends to grow with it. We take on larger financial commitments because we can afford them. Eventually, the salary that was supposed to give us more freedom becomes the very thing that is difficult to give up.

This has also changed the way I think about financial freedom.

Financial freedom is usually presented as some huge number that allows you to retire permanently. You calculate your annual expenses, multiply them by 25 or whatever formula you prefer, and that's your target. Until you reach that number, you are supposedly not financially free.

I'm beginning to think that there is another form of financial freedom that matters much earlier: not needing your next paycheck.

That doesn't mean having enough money to never work again. It means reaching a position where losing your salary would be inconvenient rather than catastrophic. Maybe you have enough savings to cover one or two years of expenses. Maybe your investments generate some income. Maybe you have a small business on the side. Maybe you have simply kept your expenses low enough that replacing your salary isn't an impossible task.

The exact method probably matters less than the result. You want to reach a point where your employer is no longer the only thing standing between your current life and financial trouble.

Because once that happens, your relationship with work changes.

You can still wake up early and go to the same office. You can still do exactly the same job and collect exactly the same salary. From the outside, nothing has changed. But internally, something important has changed because you know that you are there because continuing to work still makes sense, not because you have absolutely no other choice.

That is the kind of freedom I am increasingly interested in.

I don't necessarily want to stop working. I don't think I would enjoy doing nothing for the rest of my life anyway. I still want to make money, invest, build things and find something meaningful to spend my time on. What I want to remove is the need to organise my entire life around a salary.

Maybe one day I will still choose to wake up early, travel to an office and work from nine to six. Maybe I won't. The difference is that I want that decision to eventually belong to me.

So when I say that I hate my job, perhaps that isn't completely accurate.

I don't hate the work. I hate the routine that comes with it. And more than anything, I hate knowing that I currently need the money enough to accept that routine.

Perhaps the goal isn't to find a job that you love.

Perhaps the goal is to reach a point where you no longer need the job that you have.