Having worked various hours sacrificing personal freedom and liberties for a salary and career progression, I have realized the unconfutable truth about career . That at the end of the day its not the job you do that counts but the self development and the opportunities that are created.

These moments came to me when I was looking out at the sky at night while being on call.

Most of us who work in the professions try to negate the uncomfortable truth about careers, as we think that we are following a purpose or a goal. In reality we are just filling gaps created by a system.

Your Salary Will not Make You rich

Although money Is not the reason why we do what we do, money is unfortunately a requirement in order to pay for things we need in life and in order to live a more comfortable existence.

People think that a salary will eventually give them a comfortable life, although this is true this usually happens too late. When we are old and arthritic in a nursing home or hospital it is usually too late to use the funds you have accumulated through out your life working. One way people lose money is by working in traditional jobs and feeding the economy’s machine. Although your company might be making a profit margin usually the worker/employee does not.

One of the easiest ways to make money Is obviously starting a online business.

There are various ways one can achieve this, such as Blogging, starting a YouTube channel, coding and freelancing and doing also Medical online consultations (with the help of Med Tech applications)

People Do Jobs Because They are Conditioned To Do So

From the time we are kids till the day we eventually retire we are ‘Educated’ to performs particular tasks.

Choosing a career is a groomed decision that is pressured most of the time by our peers, educators, parents or partners.

This cant be more true, Unfortunately we usually choose a career based on what we learn in school and not on our talents. This of course is not the norm for everyone, however most of us choose a job just out of particular learned skills without thinking deeply on the matter and on future lifestyle and goals.

A Career should actually be a way of generating personal development not within a company, hospital or institution but as a person. People can excel in life by working a primary job and using the income to invest in learning multiple skills such as video editing, coding, design and in doing so designing a free lifestyle.

We must think of trading passion with actual goals, that are obtainable and enable us to live a life of fulfillment.

Studying medicine although can be time consuming and at times socially destructive eventually leads to personal freedom if one chooses to work privately. However one of the drawbacks of this is Time. Medical doctors take ages to train and become independent consultants.

Various non degree jobs however exist that can start off first as a side hustle and then become a full time income.

The Things You Buy Keep you Trapped in a Job You Hate

The things you buy are bought with your time and not with money !

The value of an item bought is the amount of hours you need to work in order to buy that item. When we do an online purchase or we buy those new pair of shoes little do we realize how our hard earned cash is being thrown away for the sake of fast fashion or to please people we don’t even like or care about.

And what do we do in order to buy that item we truly want or that new kitchen we don’t really need ? we work more shifts or work overtime.

This is also compounded by inflation and we end up becoming slaves of items that we don’t really need but we wish to suppress an itch or to stratify other people’s pleasure and to win over their opinions.

For example buying a flashy car that costs 55,000 euros will cost you 2 years of work (for most average income earners)

Buying the latest TV because you want to waste hours looking at some else’s products will set you back a few hundreds of euros.

Working long hours leads to only one thing – BURNOUT!

Sure working long and hard might seem nice for the company you work for.

But lets face it, no one care how long you work, they care that the jobs are done. In an industry like medicine, IT or engineering or any other industry for the matter a job is a task to be completed in a set amount of time. Whether you see a patient, operate on one or program a set of instructions on a laptop. A job ultimately is a problem solving task.

The more hours worked are not always translated into more income, why?

as you work longer and make more income (gross) the tax bracket will also increase and so you end up paying a higher tax than if you have less income. Another problem of working long hours is that you don’t have time to do other stuff like working on your side hustle, business plan, meeting up with friends and family.

Lets face it whether your a doctor or a bank employee most of the work involves ticking boxes and filling papers. Its not rocket science and you are not discovering anything new. Unless of course you are!

So the ultimate advice here is to choose a job that does pay enough money to pay off and invest in what you need but leaves you with free time to do other stuff.

Job titles Are Meaningless

Whether your a junior at your job or a senior, what matters is the way you perform and create meaningful work.

If a Junior doctor is able to sit down and listen to a patient more efficiently then the senior consultant who most of the times is never around than that junior doctor is 100% more useful to his patients that that senior who is there to fill in the paper work.

The same applies to bankers and CEO of a company.

We have various CEO’s whos main job is to look at the statistics and keep spending to the minimum, however the actual work they do is mediocre compared to the “lower grade” staff who might be more able at managing the department as they would have worked tremendous hours in that field. A CEO with a background in Business and marketing working as a head of a hospital might be less effective at knowing the in’s and outs of that hospital than a doctor or nurse who deals with the issues on a daily basis.

Titles although might seem fancy in reality are just what they seem to be, Titles!

Jobs come from Networking

Its who you know not what you know!

You might be the best Data Scientist or engineer or doctor, however the way you find work is through a recruitment portal or through various people. one example of success is LinkedIn. A social media platform that connect people looking for jobs with potential recruiters.

The best careers are not advertised they come from building your reputation.

Various medical jobs like surgeon, radiologist ect… are usually not found on general work related websites, why? because they are highly specific jobs requiring skills that a few people have.

Certain jobs like youtuber or blogger are also not advertised because they are related to skills built or acquired over time.

Final thoughts

In order to excel in life we should not only focus on a career, Life is not just about fulfilling roles and ticking boxes like a monkey its about learning Networking meeting people and growing as a person.